Tell your story at a glance

 

Tell Your Story aims at exploring the use  of  digital  storytelling  and  story mapping  in  education  to combat early school leaving. It also aims to motivate early school leavers to re-enter lifelong learning, thus preventing young people at risk from prematurely dropping out of school or vocational education.

 

Well-told stories are very powerful artefacts. Digital stories are often presented in compelling, interactive and emotionally engaging formats. Digital storytelling is therefore a suitable and effective means for young people to communicate their experiences.  Storytelling is defined as a short form of digital media production, which allows people to share particular aspects of their lives.  “Media” may include full-motion videos with sound, animation, stills, audio, etc., which individuals can use to tell a story or present an idea.

A recent Web 2.0 development is represented by the use of maps and connected media for digital storytelling; for instance the “Story Maps” initiative has opened the possibility for anyone to tell and share their story (www.storymaps.esri.com).

Story maps can combine interactive maps and multimedia content into user experiences. They use geographical location as a means of organising and presenting information and they tell the story of a place, event, issue, trend, or pattern in a geographic context. Also, they can combine interactive maps with other content-text, photos, video and audio – within user experiences that are basic and intuitive (ESRI, 2014).

 

Partners

 

Coordinator: PISTES-SOLIDAIRES (France) is an educational organisation that champions the knowledge, skills and attitudes that promote justice and equality in our multicultural society and interdependent world. Pistes-Solidaires works to enable individuals to better understand the links between their own lives and those of others across the world.

 

DIE BERATER (Austria) focuses on adult education vocational training and human resources development. Founded in 1998, die Berater® now employs 350 people in over 40 locations throughout Austria.

 

EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION OF GEOGRAPHERS (Belgium) is a European scientific society, which networks geographers from all walks of life. It aims to develop, support and promote policies designed to advance the status of Geography; establish and promote cross-border cooperation; promote education and training in Geography from a European perspective and represent nationally and internationally the views of its members.

 

RINOVA LIMITED (UK) is a social enterprise that specialises in the design, development, implementation and evaluation of cultural, social and economic development programmes in the areas of: skills, learning and vocational educational training (VET), the creative Industries and cultural learning, employment and employability, enterprise, community development and social action.

 

CESIE (Italy) is a non-governmental organisation, established in 2001, inspired by the work and theories of the Italian sociologist Danilo Dolci (1924-1997). CESIE contributes to the active participation of people, civil societies and institutions through the implementation of projects in various thematic areas, towards the promotion of growth and development, always valuing diversity in ethics and human development.

 

RIS Dvorec Rakičan (Slovenia) is a regional public organization from Rakičan, Slovenia. It was founded by the Municipality of Murska Sobota and co-founded by the Association for Technical Culture of Slovenia.

 

What Tell your Story aims to do

 

This project has the dual aim of:

• Motivating early school leavers to re-enter lifelong learning
• Preventing young people at risk from prematurely dropping out of school or vocational education

 

Tell your Story: main activities

 

• Desk research on the results of projects funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) and Erasmus+, of national projects and initiatives and of the results of the EU working group on early school leaving and research into digital storytelling and mapping;
• Training modules: “How to tell a life story” and “Media production skills”
• Pilot documentation: Based on the different modules; each partner organisation will engage with a group of early school leavers and test the modules on the ground.
• Learning module for targeting the early school leavers at risk.
• An exhibition of digital stories and a publication of the lessons learned from the project.

 

Beneficiaries

 

• Adult educators, teachers and youth workers working with young people with a background of (potential) early school-leaving;
• Early school-leavers - aged 15-25 - motivated to re-enter education, young people at risk of dropping out;
• NGOs working in educational field, policy makers, researchers, academic and education institutions.

 

What has been done so far?

 

The project started with a research phase on the results of previous projects related to early school leavers and on the topic of digital storytelling and mapping.  Based on the results of the research, the development of the project will follow. Early school leavers will be trained to gain digital competences; then, they will put them into practice by producing visual materials to be shown to the public.

 

Summary of the state of the art:

 

The study lays the foundation for the ensuing development work of the Tell Your Story project. It sums up the results of national and transnational desk-based research activities. The state of the art focuses on three key areas, firstly the current situation regarding prevention of, intervention against, and compensation of early leavers from education and training in the countries participating in the project (FR, AT, BE, SI, UK, IT) and at European level.

 

Early School Leavers are a non-homogeneous group. The youngsters with difficulties at school are mainly studying in a vocational high school rather than secondary schools. The main causes of dropping out are i) the school environment, ii) pupil-related such as low levels of performance and family-related like single parenthood.

 

The research examines some solutions and progress made within the strategic framework Education and Training 2020 and synthesises the present state of research on the potential for story-telling and digital story mapping to engage young people at risk.  The report explores strategies for engagement, tools that were reported to have been used and concludes with recommendations that influence the rest of the Tell Your Story project.

 

Download the Study Telling digital stories to fight against early School-Leaving here: http://tellyourstorymap.eu/outputs/

 

Based on the research, the partnership is elaborating the framework of the following modules: How to tell a life story & Media production skills.

 

Upcoming Events

 

A capacity building seminar will take place on September 18-22 in Palermo (Italy). During the meeting 3 NEETs - not (engaged) in education, employment or training - from each partner organisation, thus 18 NEETS in total will share their life anecdotes about what led to their dropping out of the school system, and the consequences arising from this decision. They will exchange the digital stories and maps they produce in the project and engage in joint multimedia production. The objective is to test learning modules and get feedback from the participants.