A story has a beginning, a middle, and a cleanly wrapped-up ending. Whether told around a campfire, read from a book, or played on a DVD, a story goes from point A to B and then C. It follows a trajectory, a Freytag Pyramid—perhaps the line of a human life or the stages of the hero's journey. A story is told by one person or by a creative team to an audience that is usually quiet, even receptive. Or at least that’s what a story used to be, and that’s how a story used to be told. Today, with digital networks and social media, this pattern is changing. Stories now are open-ended, branching, hyperlinked, cross-media, participatory, exploratory, and unpredictable. And they are told in new ways: Web 2.0 storytelling picks up these new types of stories and runs with them, accelerating the pace of creation and participation while revealing new directions for narratives to flow.
Lisa Francine on 27 Jan 13"The Stripling Inquiry Model has six phases; however, it's not a linear process but rather a recursive one in which the learner might revisit a previous stage to ask additional questions or organize information, as the need arises. Each phase involves critical thinking skills that empower young people to learn on their own and develop the thinking skills to be independent, lifelong learners. The phases are as follows: Connect: observe, experience, connect a subject to self and previous knowledge Wonder: predict, develop questions and hypotheses Investigate: find and evaluate information to answer questions, test hypotheses Construct: draw conclusions, arrive at new understandings Express: apply understandings to a new context, share learning with others Reflect: examine one's own learning and ask new questions (Stripling 2003, 8). Technology and, in particular, Web 2.0 tools and services can be used throughout the inquiry process to support the appropriate thinking skills. The key is to focus on student learning, not the Web 2.0 technology. The focus is on the phase(s) of inquiry at which students are concentrating and deciding which technology tool can best support the thinking processes and instructional strategies of that phase of inquiry. This increases the effectiveness of both the learning experience and the use of technology. An outline of the inquiry phases aligned with Web 2.0 technology tools and instructional strategies can be seen in Figure 2."
