When I think of interaction in the realm of education and learning I picture meaningful hands-on, communicative and collaborative work. From some of the descriptions in this week’s readings it can often lack these traits focusing more on just, “mutual or reciprocal action or influence,” described by Merriam-Webster for example. While this is just as important and relevant Burns (2020) states, “well-designed online classes involve collaborative activities, and Greater interactivity: games, web-based simulations, and interactive videos—and fewer worksheets. 

In order to further advance the interactive nature in these ways within my group’s storytelling focused learning resource I have chosen two videos that could help achieve this. “Preparing for Storytelling” by National Geographic Learning and “Storytelling Games for Kids” by The Colorful. Interactive learning is about designing opportunities for learners to connect intellectually, emotionally, and socially which I feel these videos could assist with. The storytelling games video would provide interactive, hands on games to integrate in intros, as brain breaks or even exit games enhancing interactive nature in an easily integrated piece. The video highlights a number of easy no set up games and explanations making this a very manageable and worthwhile addition. However the games are more targeted around smaller groups so for a larger group students could be doing these in table groups for example. This video could potentially be designed to generate better activity if it were more targeted towards larger groups of students, or was more aimed at teaching the student the games step by step or even with more visual and engaging representation.

I chose these videos as well because, in Teaching in a Digital Age, it states that, “video is particularly powerful for developing the affective, emotional or motivational aspects of learning” (Section 9.6). These videos go beyond just information delivery and model more specifics that could add to our unit. Things like tips and games that relate to expressive storytelling, facial gestures, and tone, encouraging what section 9.6 also says on learner-self interaction where students reflect inwardly and begin imagining their own stories with the help of these foundational pieces.

The video on preparing for storytelling is more of a verbal exploration of tips and tricks to think about within storytelling and is also more for prepping the educator but can act as a primer or extra reminder of things to be aware of to strengthen storytelling processes while the games video would be more directly connecting to activities the students could do. They could play the game “Roll-a-Story” to generate story elements and then plan and perform their own stories. This would perfectly tie into the lesson one and two that we are planning relating to the parts of a story, its elements, and creating students’ own narratives. To link this to learner-learner interaction they could even perform these digitally through video form which could create a video based peer feedback and reflection piece.

This would lead the unit’s activities to better align with Anderson’s (2003) Modes of Interaction, which suggest that learning deepens when at least one interaction, learner-content, learner-learner, or learner-teacher, is present at a high level. This design helps incorporate all three which would also assist in allowing students to participate in a meaningful way that doesn’t just revolve around a social aspect.

In her article “Getting Ready to Teach Next Year”, Mary Burns reminds educators that flexible tools like video and asynchronous sharing allow lessons to continue smoothly across in-person, remote, or hybrid settings which is crucial in uncertain learning environments. These videos would allow for flexibility and a strong foundation if this unit was being provided purely online as one provides game instructions and the other, important information to further storytelling approaches, features and presentation. Lastly from activities related to these videos its crucial to consider properly assessing these interaction pieces. Section 9.6 highlights that, we must look “beyond participation to the quality of engagement and learning outcomes.” This can be done through peer reflection of stories and feedback in a combination of learner-learner and learner-teacher interaction assessments. In this unit it’s important to note that students aren’t just learning stories they’re living, expressing, and interacting through them making this assessment process a core aspect.