Focused dialogue / Storytelling

In the Focused dialogue / Storytelling e-tivity the instructor provides a topic related to the content of a course or lecture and then asks the students to conduct a dialogue or write a story sentence after sentence. This online activity should have written explanation to provide background, define roles and set rules for the dialogue, or an "opening scene" if the students have to write a story. In the case of a focused dialogue the students take turns in adding dialogue sentences, while in case of storytelling they may add a whole paragraf or scene at once. It is important for the students not to wonder off from the given topic and to try to illustrate the lecture in a meaningful way that is of use for those students who will be reading the dialogue or story. The topics of dialogue could be related to reseachers analyzing some empirical data or new phenomenon, businessmen trying to solve a specific problem, engineers working on a new prototype, etc. The topics of a story could be related to a historic event, an expedition or excursion to some geographical point of interest, a visit to a microcosmic or macrocosmic location, etc. The results could be presented online for comenting and peer learning. If synchronous text-based tools are used (chat, instant messaging) or live audio/video recording that is later placed online it may add excitement and amusement, as well as uncertainty about the final results of e-tivity while it is performed.

For this e-tivity asynchronus collaboration tools are most suitable like wiki, blog, collaborative writing tools (Google docs - documents, Zoho), as well as tools for learning communities (Ning, SocialGo).