A group of local educators will be returning to school with new skills after a National Museum of Bermuda (NMB) professional development workshop that took place over the summer.
In partnership with US non-profit StoryCenter, NMB brought a small cohort of local middle school educators together (from public and private schools) for a six-week intensive digital storytelling pilot workshop.
Digital storytelling is a simple, creative process through which people with little or no experience in film-making gain skills to tell a personal story in a two-minute film using predominantly still images and voiceover.
The goals of the NMB workshop were to introduce teachers to digital storytelling, have them create their own personal digital story, and bring newly acquired skills into the classroom so they can teach their students how to research, document, and share their own family histories.
During the workshop participants brought history to life. They shared personal stories from the Caribbean, UK, Canada, Europe, and Asia, reflecting the diversity of Bermuda’s heritage and its connections to the Atlantic World.
Digital storytelling builds important skills including, but not limited to, communication skills, digital literacy, empathy, and expanding interest and pride in one’s own family, community, and national histories.
Learning how to write and share one’s personal story is more relevant than ever. The process helps people to discover themselves, create their own story, and critically assess how to share it with others.
Lisa Howie, NMB Director of Learning & Engagement said of the experience:
“As we each worked through the steps of creating our own digital story, it was easy to see why this multi-literacy tool will be an asset in any classroom, and transferable across subject areas. I want to commend the teachers who participated as we all know how challenging last school year was. I look forward to hearing about classroom experiences and following how students embrace this.”
This workshop was one of four Teacher Professional Development workshops the Museum offered in the 2020-21 school year and NMB is working with the Department of Education to hold five more free TPD workshops during the 2021-22 school year.
Below is a video created by participants in the workshop.
Guided by its Education Strategy (2019), the National Museum of Bermuda (NMB) is shifting how and whose history is taught in Bermuda classrooms. With its Teacher Professional Development Programme series, “Moving the Needle”, NMB provides accurate historical content, new teaching methods, and free workshops for local educators to make history relevant to today’s learners. To learn more about NMB’s teacher trainings, visit: https://nmb.bm/teacherdevelopment/.
