‘’Story Changers: enhancing pupils’ social skills and enriching teaching methods through storytelling and virtual reality’’ is a project that targets pupils of primary education and teachers and utilizes storytelling (live and digital) aiming at: • developing basic social skills such as empathy, emotions management, problem solving, critical thinking among primary education pupils • acquaint pupils and teachers with new technologies • enriching everyday teaching methodology across different subjects in the primary education • upgrading teachers’ skills such as creativity and flexibility • promoting diversity in primary education The above goals will be achieved through the following main activities: 1. The consortium will create the ‘’You Tell’’ stories and ‘’You Tell’’ interactive Virtual Reality scenarios. (a)The ‘’You Tell’’ stories (10) are a series of prototype interactive stories for primary education pupils with several alternative evolutions to be decided by pupils based on their social skills and values. In parallel children will learn on how to use storytelling for upgrading their skills in general. The creation of the ‘’You Tell’’ stories will draw inspiration by the legacy of Gianni Rodari’s (Italy) methods described in his classic manual ‘’The Grammar of Fantasy’’ and his stories collection ‘’Tante Storie Per Giocare’’ (‘’Stories to lough with’’) but also Evgenios Trivizas’ (Greece) fairy tales series ‘’Fairy Tales with lots of branches’’. (b) Afterwards, some of the the ‘’You Tell’’ Stories (5) will be transformed into the ‘’You Tell’’ interactive VR scenarios which, as a tool, will highly boost the training package 2. The development of a teaching package to be used by teachers that includes the above mentioned deliverables but also icebreakers, guides etc Teachers inside and outside the consortium will be trained to use the teaching package Implementation of the ‘’Change the Story’’ experiential teaching events for primary education pupils based on the Teaching Package developed that includes also the You Tell stories and the You Tell interactive VR scenarios , aiming at developing pupils’ empathy, emotions management etc. but also teach children on how to use storytelling to upgrade their skills in general. The workshop will be pilot tested in schools of the consortium. In the first phase, pupils will be acquainted to basic social skills and values throughout the ‘’decision points’’ of the YOU TELL stories and in the second phase, they will be introduced to an interactive digital world (VR) through which pupils will have a life-time learning experience and teachers will be introduced to a new and innovative teaching philosophy. The project will be promoted through multiplier events in all partner countries, ending with a large scale event in Cyprus where all the interested parts (pupils, teachers, policy makers, stakeholders and all types of child/education specialists) will exchange views regarding the inclusion of new technologies and innovative teaching methods in national education systems, with, of course, a special focus on Storytelling and Virtual Reality. The partnership comprises of educational and research institutions, primary schools and development company. thus, ensuring the duality of experience and expertise.
’Story Changers’’ intended to construct a bridge between STORYTELLING and VR on one side and BASIC SOCIAL SKILLS for primary education pupils (like critical thinking and empathy) on the other. It intended to achieve the development of basic social skills through making primary education pupils the heroes of stories either been delivered through traditional story telling or through VR. More specifically Story Changers aimed to 1.develop a European Training package to develop specific soft skills of pupils through a combination of story telling and virtual reality. The main soft skills being developed by Story Changers are Resilience, Setting Limits, Diversity, Friendship appreciation and respect 2.use the above as a methodology for the development of other soft skills in the future through the experience gained through the current project 3. through this process to provide to teachers innovative teaching tools for the development of the soft skills of their pupils. At the application stage the project intended to provide the teachers with 10 stories to be used through story telling (facilitated by teacher) with decision points where the decisions of the hero affect the result of the story and some of them (5) through VR and through desktop application. The project finally developed what it has promised but also 1)illustrated versions of the stories to be used by pupils standalone and 2) an android version of the 5 stories
Storytelling through centuries has been acknowledged as therapeutic (Karageorgiou 1996). In its Opinion the Committee on Industry, Research &Energy of the European Parliament underlings ‘’that, in a context of rapid digital and societal transformation, the education system should support, from an early age and throughout life, a balanced set of skills and competences boosting individuals’ resilience, critical thinking, well‑being, and innovation potential; points out that a synergy between relevant digital skills and life skills, as well as key competences needs to be sought urgently’’ while it ‘’recalls that digital technology and access to data are enablers of innovation in education’. Stories are offered to people through the art of storytelling. In the same time, there are ways to dynamically insert storytelling in new technologies and from there to education and schools. ‘’VR is a new form of expression and storytelling’’. Despite the little experience –or because of it- at an EU level, the ‘’Story Changers’’ intended to construct a bridge between storytelling and VR on one side and basic social skills (like critical thinking and empathy) on the other in order to develop the social skills of primary education pupils.