E-learning 3: Multimodal conceptual project planning

You’ve guessed it!!….I’ve yet to concretise what I plan to do for my DST. I have some ideas but I guess this e-learning task kind of forces me to sit and place the plan on paper. I didn’t know what story I wanted to tell, but after reading Ohler’s book, several things stood out for me. According to him, stories help us make sense out of the chaos of life and they provide a powerful framework and set of practical processes for resolving issues, educating ourselves and pursuing our goals. Thus I’ve decided to share my story as I try to figure and make sense of my future plans.

Planning it down conceptually wasn’t easy for me. Initially, I even thought of using the storyboarding template suggested by Ohler. In the end, I decided to just go ahead and get it all down on paper first or rather on this blog first and to work on the technical aspects of it later.

General Storyline – to share my experience as a research staff, what is involved in the work, to change general perceptions about research work being dull or boring, to show how different it is from teaching, to convince teachers that it can be a possible avenue or route for a professional development opportunity, how it has affected me professionally

Title – I’ve yet to figure this out but I was thinking along the lines of - a whole new world, a different life, a different world, a new beginning, etc. (Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated here)

Genre – it’s a narrative, part recount (?) of what I’ve been doing in the past, teaching vs. what I’m doing now

Target audience – fellow educators, other teachers in MOE schools

Purpose – to provide a different perspective, to inform and be aware of possibility for a career change or another avenue for attachment as part of professional development

Modalities – Still images, music, written text, movement and transitions. I’m still considering if I will use spoken words to tell the story as I’m not confident of narrating it well *.

As I was trying to piece my ideas together, I used Labov’s (1997) model of natural narrative to look at it at a more macro level.

Abstract : I’ll start off with a title page with written text of the title on it. Followed by a short summarizing statement that this story I’m sharing is about what I’m doing now and how it has impacted my life. I think this should be narrated. (but see * point above)

Orientation: To help my audience identify place and activity, I would be showing still images of where my office is, images of typical research work. The images would serve as icons (Pierce, 1992).

Complicating action and Resolution: Share the information that I used to teach in school before becoming a research staff, still images of school, teacher, teaching here. Compare it with research work, show images of that to create a contrast. The research work is not permanent. I would have to go back to schools, back to teaching. For this part, I’m thinking about showing an image that could index non-permanence, temporariness, I’ve yet to find that! (Suggestions?) I also plan to include and maybe to suggest the urgency in issue of time, maybe a still image of clock ticking as an index.

Evaluation: That the opportunity to engage in research work has widened my horizons, offer me an alternative career path to consider, the friendship I’ve made along the way. Still images to be used here will be an image to portray research work (icon) that fades off to show a still image of the horizon (as index) and another image that could index friendship.

Coda: The ending will be how I’ve grown by going through this experience. It is an opportunity which affected my professional development. I will use a still image that could symbolize this concept. (I’m still searching for this.)

Music – I’m still searching – Help!!!!

I’m not sure if this plan for my DST will work and I really hope to get some feedback and suggestions from all. So do let me know what you think.