The Ohio State University Develops a Community of Practice to Engage Students, Faculty, and Staff in Digital Storytelling

There is a trend in higher education where more and more people are being called upon to work with each other, across disciplines. Digital storytelling is a great way to introduce people to each other and help them understand the purpose of the work that they’re doing, the passion behind what they’re doing. For students, it’s a way to develop skills for understanding all of the visual information that’s coming at them every day. When they have the opportunity to produce work about their lives, they’re much more able to judge how media is made, and how it shapes their understanding of the world.
— Karen Diaz, Head of the Teaching and Learning Office, Ohio State University (OSU) Libraries; Director of the Ohio State University Digital Storytelling Program (from OSU Writer’s Talk, 2015)

In 2005, two members of the Ohio State University (OSU) library system, Karen Diaz and Anne Fields, attended our StoryCenter digital storytelling workshop in Asheville, NC and together created a story about renovations to the OSU library. Upon their return to Ohio, they engaged the newly formed Digital Union in a project to integrate digital storytelling into the library system’s information technology and curriculum support services. A year later, OSU invited us to lead an on-campus workshop, for a group of faculty and staff. This session resulted in the formation of an OSU Digital Storytelling Leadership Team, comprised of members drawn from several parts of the university.

The Leadership Team has been very active in developing a range of approaches to the academic use of digital storytelling methods. Several involved faculty members have become strong proponents of the form in their lectures, presentations, and promotion of classes. This faculty engagement has in turn led to the active use of digital storytelling as a curriculum component for students, across multiple disciplines. 

Learn more about digital storytelling at OSU.

Interview with Karen Diaz and Joe Lambert about OSU Digital Storytelling

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University of Maryland (Baltimore County) Demonstrates the Power of Story in Service Learning

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Rocky Mountain Public Health Training Center: Storytelling Webinars and Working with Native American Communities