The Storyline-method is growing in popularity in the Upper Secondary School system in Norway Åse Paulsen Skiftun, Kvinesdal Upper Secondary School, Norway
I was recently participating in the Nordic Storyline Conference in Gothenburg, which was, as usual, very interesting. In one of the coffee breaks I met a Norwegian colleague. “It is really quiet about Storyline in Norway now”, he said. I have been thinking a little bit and I am not quite sure about that. It is a bit quiet in the Primary School just now, perhaps, but in Upper Secondary School it is quite the opposite. Kvinesdal Upper Secondary School is giving several courses every year to teachers in other secondary schools. The topic is: How to use the Storyline-method in Upper Secondary School?
In Norway the new curriculum emphasises documentation and evaluation of each student’s learning. We have the experience that we can do this in a good way with the use of the Storyline method and especially with using the interactive Storyline-toolkit. By joining the National Learning Network (Lærende nettverk) we have been given the opportunity to teach the topic “Social studies” according to the new subject Curriculum.
The first-year students of Lyngdal Upper Secondary School have been working all year using the Storyline-toolkit with very good results. And perhaps the most important thing: the students enjoyed working in this way. Recently, we have finished the work of adding a topic in the Natural Science Subject Curriculum into the Toolkit: “Eco-systems and sustainable development”.
The Students tell us that it is more interesting to learn together with their own imaginary characters and it is easier to understand the “connections to real life”. Wonderful to hear!
Currently, we are starting a very interesting cooperative project with The University of Agder. One of the teachers in the Practical Teacher Training programme (PPU) wants to use the Storyline-toolkit in his teaching in didactic topics in Autumn 2008. Exciting!
The Kindergartens in central parts of Oslo are also doing Storylinesl! In March 2008 about ninety employees were gathered to learn about this method. Åse Paulsen Skiftun and Bente Rom Øysæd from Kvinesdal Upper Secondary School were the leaders of the course together with two teachers from the preparatory school – Laxens fõrskola. Most of them became very enthusiastic about this. A few days afterwards we got a message from them : now we have started!!