Digital storytelling: A relational pedagogic approach to rebuilding hybrid places for creativity, equity and community building in a crisis

The COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on human flourishing worldwide as in-person teaching and learning provision within universities and schools rapidly shifted online. This exposed challenges as staff and students worked from home. Digital competences in online pedagogy differed across teaching teams, access to digital equipment, technical and social infrastructure was limited, specific fields of study had different requirements, and physical distancing measures heightened social isolation. ‘The Ship of Theseus’ is a thought experiment that poses the question: if every part of a ship is replaced, is it still the same ship? The authors apply the Ship of Theseus to reflect on experiences of rebuilding and reimagining teaching and learning online in a crisis. This intergenerational, practice-informed case study considers a strategic role for digital storytelling on the Digital Media and Communications BSc (DMC) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) during the COVID-19 pandemic. A student-led component was supported by two research internships as part of MMU’s extracurricular programme, Rise. Catering specifically for students with culturally diverse backgrounds, Rise enables students to enhance their degree profile through activities such as volunteering, self-study on other learning platforms, work experience or research projects. The two student co-authors cooperated as peers, and as part of the research team in order to critique and reimagine curriculum content delivery in a crisis. This was informed by the literature and student co-authors’ critical reflections on their lived experience of pandemic online teaching and learning and prototyping an equitable alternative to build a creative community that co-imagines different desires and visions of the future from an inequitable present. In applying the Ship of Theseus to the use of digital storytelling to support online teaching and learning, we offer active learning strategies to reinvigorate relational pedagogic approaches that position online learning within wider debates to transform higher education. The authors suggest that digital storytelling can rebuild social connections and transform online spaces into hybrid places where meaningful and creative playfulness can become anchored within practice. We conclude that designing for equity by extending digital storytelling communities of practice beyond university learning environments provides alternative spaces that potentially transform how learners respond equitably to global crises together. While new forms of digital storytelling, cooperation, co-learning and community building are invaluable, the rapid convergence of digital technologies and media by industry warrants active stewarding to address emergent digital media ethical challenges, including accessibility, privacy and equity.