Not all Stories are Created Equal

• By Jenny Parker
• January 7, 2008

Today’s question: What makes a story educational?

Stories are among the oldest instructional tools available, and hard research suggests that our brains are wired to take them seriously in everyday thinking.

Makes sense, right? Think about the evening news – it is more often than not presented as a ‘story’, complete with characters, conflicts, and outcomes. Think too about how often you retell something that happened to you as a story … yep, we’re definitely hardwired to incorporate information and make sense of our world this way.

No wonder then that the educational potential of virtual characters and digital storytelling are attracting enthusiastic attention of museums, teachers and commercial software companies.

But when it comes to educational storytelling, not all stories are created equal. Virtual characters and their stories can easily go awry, leaving you with mere “edutainment” that might engage, but does nothing to help aid learning.

So how to avoid this pitfall?

“Stories only become explicitly instructional when they include guided practice, feedback, and assessment,” advise Night Kitchen Interactive’s Juan Leon and Matthew Fisher in their 2006 paper, Interactive Educational Storytelling. They caution that while educational storytelling is a new (and fun) tool, it should still incorporate well established educational principles and proven teaching methodologies.

That doesn’t mean you can’t get creative. Consider the engaging and instructive Abraham Lincoln’s Crossroads, an online interactive developed by Night Kitchen Interactive for the National Constitution Center: As an animated Lincoln takes the visitor on an interactive romp through the major decisions of his lifetime, this activity achieves specific educational goals, while also engaging users with its story format.

For more about how to put the educational power of your story to work, read Interactive Educational Storytelling. There’s also a one-page overview of our Abraham Lincoln project.

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