Talking images: Exploring culture through arts-based digital storytelling

Abstract

Most FL educators have enjoyed the opportunity to include the arts in their everyday teaching. Many have also reaped the benefits of working with technology in their teaching, most notably in the form of computer-assisted language learning platforms (CALL) and the vast opportunities offered by the Internet and new social media. The project presented in this chapter combines the creative use of technology and the inclusion of—or concentration on—(original) works of visual art in an advanced German culture course. Following principles for guiding digital storytelling projects, students created digital video-animations for original works of art in German (with subtitles). These videos were then uploaded to iPads and made available to visitors of a class-curated exhibition of Weimar German art at the school’s museum. Projects allowed students to explore both images creatively, as products and perspectives of the target culture and language, all while engaging learners in complex cultural comparisons. By creating their creative curatorial materials, students thus reached far beyond their classroom and beyond the German-speaking community on campus. They also sharpened their skills in digital technology in the process. Finally, the students’ technological abilities and limitations also provided a different lens through which to read art and provided opportunities for discussions about the use(fulness) of technology and digital literacy in the 21st-century FL curriculum.