Tikatok and Education

Why Storytelling is Important

Kids aren’t unique in their love of stories. As humans, it seems like we just can’t get enough. Joseph Campbell famously described elements of mythological stories that seemed to exist across cultures. Some psychologists—including Jerome Bruner, a major architect of the US Head Start program—believe that our need to tell stories goes even deeper, that narrative is a part of how we think, make sense of the world, and build an understanding of ourselves.

What stories will be fundamental to our kids’ understanding of themselves? And what stories will help adults understand childhood? So rarely do we hear the authentic voices of children in media. Children’s books are, of course, almost all written by adults. In a mass media culture, consuming the stories of others presents the path of least resistance. And for too many children, early years of creative activity give way to years of passive consumerism. But there has been a growing shift in culture, a shift away from the mass media model towards what Henry Jenkins, principle investigator of the Project for New Media Literacies at MIT, calls “Participatory Culture.”

The Challenges of Participatory Culture

Under this model of Participatory Culture, new technologies are unleashing our ability to share stories, images, and experiences. But Participatory Culture brings with it its own challenges. People aren’t born with the ability to surf the web, create personal profiles, edit video, and remix music. And having these skills is not the same as knowing how to use them safely and responsibly. As teens migrate more and more to online social networks and creative communities, it is increasingly important that they come with some experiences in navigating these spaces, and an understanding of their ethical responsibility to themselves and others. Learning these new media ethics is a process that should begin at childhood.

We know teens are leading Web users, but relatively little attention has been given to younger children. Some new sites have attracted children with online games and toys that live in virtual worlds. These sites have introduced kids to the Web, but have done little to encourage creativity, imagination, or participation. Children still lack the basic ability to create online, and a platform that will motivate them to learn and share their knowledge.

Informal Learning and Affinity Spaces

Schools play a key role in guiding children’s use of the Internet and helping them form the basic computer literacy skills they will need in the coming years. But research is showing that the informal education a child receives at home and on the playground can have an even greater effect on their academic success than their carefully structured classes. Computers can provide a platform for learning that operates less by instruction than by experimentation or trial and error. Computers can help kids learn by allowing them to explore and test the boundaries of a system.

But writing is not just an individual process, it is a social skill. We understand this intuitively when we see children telling stories or acting out improvisational plays with their friends. Online communities have the potential to be powerful “affinity spaces.” Linguist James Gee coined the term to describe the informal learning environments where people are deeply engaged and highly motivated around a shared passion. In these spaces, learning happens with peers supporting each other and passing on their knowledge to new members. Affinity spaces can be more experimental, forgiving of mistakes, and adaptive to change than educational institutions.

Scaffolding and Collaboration

We do better in any situation when we have a little help. Some educational reformers believe that the best way to help kids learn is to remove all barriers to expression and let kids discover their own way. Some media companies have created products designed to teach children, even infants, through language learning videos. But these approaches contradict both common sense and most modern educational research. We develop our language skills not by simple observation but by a process known as “scaffolding,” by interacting with more advanced peers who can provide personal help when needed.

Interactive technology can help scaffold storytelling, but technology is not the ultimate solution. There can be no digital substitute for a committed human peer: a friend, parent, or teacher. But parents and teachers can work with new technologies to enhance their capabilities. It can connect students with each other, and with their teachers, in new and powerful ways. Online distribution of stories makes important aspects of the writing process that may be esoteric more real: the author’s responsibility to the audience, the challenge of maintaining privacy, the value of copyrights. Being a “published author” helps students understand authorship in new depth.

Tikatok™: Storytelling for the 21st Century

Tikatok responds to these challenges and opportunities with products designed to motivate and scaffold storytelling in children.

First, Tikatok has developed the StorySparks™ system, a database of hundreds of interactive story prompts that help a child get started in the writing process and get help when they need it. StorySparks help activate a child’s natural motivation. Kids pick the topic, choose character names and genders, and always have the ability to modify or ignore any part of the prompt.

Second, Tikatok connects kids to a community of passionate storytellers like themselves, but in a safe and parent-moderated environment. Here they can share their books with other kids, collaborate with their friends, get writing advice, and communicate their love of reading and writing in book clubs. Tikatok makes digital storytelling the social activity that kids are familiar with from the playground.

Finally, Tikatok can turn a child’s stories into real printed books. The physical books, just like the ones on the shelves at the bookstore, reinforce the child’s perception that their contributions are valued by their parents and peers. They help create a sense of pride, and of confidence in one’s writing abilities, and drive the child to continue writing and creating.

The passion for reading and writing that children develop on Tikatok will serve them well as they face more and more advanced educational challenges at school.