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Digital storytelling: Event showcases new strategies to communicate ideas

Graduate student Theresa Kadish speaks on using TikTok to teach science communications to Rachel Poirer, a graduate student studying psychology. Graduate student Theresa Kadish speaks on using TikTok to teach science communications to Rachel Poirer, a graduate student studying psychology.
Graduate student Theresa Kadish speaks on using TikTok to teach science communications to Rachel Poirer, a graduate student studying psychology. Image Credit: Jonathan Cohen.

Graphic novels to share anthropological case studies. Memes that explain mutualism in the biological sciences. TikTok, Discord servers and podcasts, podcasts, podcasts.

Academic papers aren鈥檛 the only way to share discoveries in the liberal arts and sciences. On March 25, Harpur College professors and graduate students shared their digital storytelling strategies with the campus community, hoping to spark interest in new platforms and methods. The event was a precursor to a , which will be held from Aug. 8鈥12 this year.

鈥淒igital storytelling is a new way for people to communicate their research,鈥 explained history lecturer Chelsea Gibson, who organized the showcase. 鈥淲e want to encourage faculty to use these strategies in the classroom.鈥

The showcased projects were wide-ranging. Assistant Professor of Art and Design G枚khan Ersan demonstrated the use of graphic design to illustrate complex concepts in chemistry and physics, while John Lee highlighted efforts to compile a multigenerational archive of the 香港六合彩资料 punk scene. Sparked by last fall鈥檚 香港六合彩资料 Art Museum exhibit on punk, 鈥淣ow form a band,鈥 the archive collects and preserves materials digitally, and includes audio interviews.

鈥淲e want to make it so that anyone who has been part of the scene can connect to it without giving up any of their material,鈥 said Lee, stacks maintenance coordinator with the libraries.

New media

Comic books 鈥 or graphic novels 鈥 are also being used to communicate complex ideas and relationships. The format may make these ideas more accessible to a larger population, such as children or people with learning challenges.

While such projects can be assembled by hand, software makes their creation easier, and innovations such as Discord servers can give subjects a space to interact and share their own stories, said Anthropology Professor Joshua Reno, who shared graphic novels created by his students at the event.

In one, the graduate student author illustrated an ethnographic study that involved a former boyfriend of hers, originally from the Middle East; the first frame shows the two talking together in bed, with the subsequent frames flashing back to his experiences in his home country. In a second example, student Annabel Fair 鈥20 ran a Discord server to collect monster-themed stories from the LGBTQ community, and then created a 鈥檢ine with the help of participants in that online community.

鈥淚 encourage students to create projects that can do some of the same work that anthropology does in written form,鈥 Reno said.

Anthropology isn鈥檛 the only discipline to explore graphic novels. Associate Professor of Biological Science Jessica Hua鈥檚 research lab created one called 鈥淎mphibian Adventures鈥 to teach third-graders about frogs.

The goal is to have the children assist in collecting amphibian biodiversity data for a community science initiative, she said. Her students also use social media and memes to summarize concepts and findings.

Biological sciences graduate student Theresa Kadish showcased the opportunities available on TikTok, a highly popular short-form video platform. In addition to being active on TikTok herself, Kadish has taught a crash course through Harpur Edge on using the medium to communicate work and career goals. Kadish, whose academic discipline is mycology (the study of fungi), was also a teaching assistant in a class that had students create TikTok videos describing mushroom species.

A good TikTok video can attract a massive amount of views; in her most popular post, Kadish garnered 11 million, she said. But there are downsides to the platform, too; TikTok can delete posts without warning or explanation, probably because of the massive amount of material uploaded every day. The videos are also short, although the company recently expanded the maximum length to 10 minutes.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a platform that gives me the opportunity to reach millions of people, but you have to fit TikTok鈥檚 parameters,鈥 she said.

Podcasts are a popular option to share longer-form digital narratives. Doctoral candidates Shruti Jain and Le Li have created one called 鈥溾 in partnership with the Tenement Museum in New York. The two are international students; Jain is from India and studying English, while Li is from China and part of the Translation, Research and Instruction Program (TRIP). The podcast showcases stories about immigrants, with a particular emphasis on women; there are three episodes so far, Jain said.

Jain mastered the skills she needed through an introductory course in podcasting offered through the English Department. Sarah Bull, a lecturer with the Writing Initiative, teaches the undergraduate version of the course Writing and Producing Podcasts; in her class, Bull鈥檚 students examine 10 different genres of podcasts, analyzing the rhetorical strategies, narratives and more. For class presentations, some even create their own podcasts to offer analysis on other podcasts.

Students working on their own podcast or video projects can take advantage of a recording studio in the Bartle Library, a space that includes microphones, a camera, backdrops, access to software and more.

Bull actually has a comedy podcast of her own, How It Came to Be, about bizarre origin stories. In class, she draws on that experience to discuss the challenges of writing for the medium.

鈥淧odcasting gives voice to narratives that aren鈥檛 always told through other mediums,鈥 Bull said.

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