Resources for Educators

Digital
Spatial Story Lines (DSSLs) are a way to leverage emerging geo-spatial
technologies to support learning about public history in ways that blend work
in the learning sciences and social studies (Resor, 2010; Sakr, Jewitt, & Price, 2016). Digital mobile
technology can be a powerful tool allowing users to take objects, such as
archival media, and view them in the historical locations those media could be
linked to spatially, temporally, or narratively (Mulholland, Collins & Zdrahal,
2004; Refsland, Tuters
& Cooley, 2007; Procyk
& Neustaedter,
2014).

The
DSSL framework seeks to build on the potential of digital technology to support
storytelling activities. Digital storytelling combines the art of storytelling
with digital multimedia sources, such as images, audio and video to engage,
inform, and educate new generations of students (Robin, 2006).

The
theoretical framework is taken from recent research surrounding the role of
story and narrative in history education. Historical narratives serve as
representations of the past which are passed on for different purposes (Van
Alphen & Carretero,
2015). As people hear aspects of history repeated, these become incorporated
into master or schematic narratives which may foster a perception of an
idealized past as connected to the present (Carretero & Van Alphen, 2014). If master
narratives are the dominant historical stories which are students are exposed
to in school, then this may limit students’ access to alternative historical
perspectives or historical counter narrative about the same event. Taking the
purpose of history education to be identity construction and the development of
critical historical thinking skills (Wineburg, 1991), learning to think historically
might be difficult for students who have only interacted with master narratives
as they have acquired biased conceptions about the past (Van Alphen & Carretero,
2015; Carretero
& Van Alphen, 2014).

The
DSSL framework positions students to be the authors of counternarratives which
talk back to the more dominant tellings of history they may previously have
encountered (Solorzano
& Yasso,
2002; Taylor & Hall, 2017). Equipping students with the substantive
knowledge and conceptual tools which challenge their preexisting schematic
narratives may enable them to develop a more sophisticated understanding of
history and their place in the historical present (Wills, 2011; O’Neill, Guloy
& Sensoy,
2014 ).

For more information on the DSSL Activity Sequence, click here.