Monica Tubbesing EDUC 5333 Week 2

PART 1: Please review the digital stories included below and choose one to discuss.  

Chosen digital story: Inequality is real by the economic policy institute. 

How do the choices made by the author engage audience members?  If music is used, what effect does it have on you? If graphics or animation is included, how do they enhance the story?  If the story is interactive, what are you able to explore?  

The author engages the audience with the title of the story. The first screen is engaging. Looking at the map of the United States without any sound makes you wonder what is coming next. Then, the one by one the words appear: “Inequality is Real, Personal, Expensive, and it was created.” Immediately, after the words appear in the Unted States map, a cartoon of the teacher holding a pointer stick appears, and her text bubble says: “We’ll show you how.” 

The music used in the video where Professor Robert Reich explains how inequality is created uses a type of soft-background video game music which makes me think about winning or losing a game. Some of the graphics can be manipulated by choosing the area of a circle to see how the user would like to split the ten percent top income. After choosing a percentage, the pile of money is distributed in a graphic manner, which makes it easy to understand where the money goes. 

The story is interactive with the options to distribute the money and with the opportunities to compare your income according to your gender, educations level, and race. It also gives you the opportunity to see the estimated earnings without inequality. 

PART 2: What educational value do you see in the story?  What content and ISTE standards are addressed by the creation of the story?  What age group is the target audience? What connections do you see to your content area or grade-level instruction? 

The educational value of this digital story is the information put together from the Economic Policy institute (2025) in a condensed and attractive format. The user has to navigate the website in order to find the graphics and information. Clicking on the different pages of the website may not be interesting to the visual or auditory learner. 

I imagine the age group taget are those from high school that start to work through those that may be older adults that are still working. I don’t see unemployed individuals included in this distribution of wealth cases. 

The ISTE standards for students addressed are: 1.1 Empowered Learner, 1.3 Knowledge Constructor, and 1.7 Global Collaborator (International Society for Technology in Education, 2025). The connections to my content area are minimal but the information in engaging as Citizen of the United States, a worker, a Hispanic woman, and a voter.  

 

PART 3: Based on Ohler's and Lambert's guidance for story creation, what connections do you see to the story you have focused on?  What type of story is it? Construct and share a simple story map. 

Based on Ohler (2023) there are three components for the core of a story are a problem, a transformation, and a solution. In this case the problem is the growing income inequality in the United States, the transformation happened due to policy decision that shifted economic power, the solution is to fix this problem but getting to know the issue and getting involved.  

The story of the America inequality creation was illustrated by cartoons and narrated by Professor Robert Reich. He tells after World Ward II there were about three decades when was equality income but on the later the lower-class and middle-class workers were systematically dismantled, and the economic power people set the rules. This shift allowed for a change in economic power from the workers to the rich. The simple story map will be as follows: 

 

 

According to Lamber (2010) story telling for African and Jewish cultures have great spiritual value and is a synonymous of life. For Lamber “Story is learning, celebrating, healing, and remembering” (2010). As of the type of story Professor Robet Reich is telling, I feel inclined to say it is a story of discovery because he is illustrating uncovering the facts to get to the truth.  

Story telling is learning, journey of seven steps:  

1. Owning your insights. 

2. Owning your emotions. 

3. Finding the moment. 

4. Seeing your story. 

5. Hearing your story. 

6. Assembling your story. 

7. Sharing your story. 

According to Robin (2006), digital story telling is an art. This art combines image, audio, and video to present information in a topic. The major types of digital stories are personal narratives, digital stories that examine historical events, and stories that inform and instruct. If we try to classify Professor Reich’s story, it may fall under the type of inform or instruct. There are seven elements of digital story telling: 

1. Point of view. 

2. A dramatic question. 

3. Emotional content. 

4. The gift of your voice. 

5. The power of soundtrack.  

6. Economy 

7. Pacing. 

 

 

 

References  

Economic Policy Institute. (2025). About. https://www.epi.org/about/ 

International Society for Technology Education. ISTE standards: For students. https://iste.org/standards/students 

Lambert, J. (2010). Digital Storytelling Cookbook. Center for Digital Story Telling. Open Education Resource. (Chapter 1 - 8 pages).  

Ohler, J. (2023). How to make a story - Process notes. Retrieved from: http://storyconcepts.blogspot.com/   

Robin, B. (2006). The educational uses of digital storytelling. In Society for information technology & teacher education international conference (pp. 709-716). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). (17 pages)