The Possibilities of Storytelling 📔💬

Storytelling has long been a powerful tool in corporate training, we love to use story to engage learners and convey complex ideas in relatable ways. Traditionally, stories often rely on text and visuals to support knowledge transfer whether it is printed or digital. Nevertheless, these formats as usual place learners as passive recipients, limiting their engagement and reflection. This instructional approach, deep-seated in instructionism, can now be shifted to be more flexible by leveraging the potential of modern mobile technologies.

With the rise of mobile and web-based tools, nowadays, educators can easily design interactive storytelling experiences with minimal technical skills. It shifts the learning dynamic from passive absorption to active participation, allowing learners to make decisions, explore consequences, and reflect on their choices.

Among the tools available for creating digital interactive stories, I have tried to used Twine and **Genially,** they are two widely used tools and easy to learn, which educators can use them to design interactive stories for learners to interact with the stories and create greater learning efficacy.

Here is the Brief Comparison of Twine and Genially

As Twine is open-source and intuitive to use, it is more suitable for educators who are new to design interactive story. Its flexibility offers deeper narrative exploration. With the help of AI tools, educators can easily customize and embed the HTML/CSS coding for styling. Therefore, it is more ideal for educators who want to try designing interactive and reflective learning.

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The following analysis explores how Twine supports interactive storytelling and engage adult learners to learn more effectively and deeply in two aspects

1. By analyzing the pedagogical values of Twine to inspire educators how the interactive storytelling supported by mobile technologies can transform learning into a more immersive and learner-centered experience to enhance learner engagement and learning outcomes,
2. By using MBTI training as a case example to demonstrate how interactive storytelling can include decision-making element and support personal reflection. </aside>

Four Categories of Story Telling and Examples

Before diving into How Twine supports interactive storytelling, it would be helpful to define different types of storytelling used in instructional design, so that we could better understand how “Interactivity” supports different storytelling approaches in a meaningful way.

According to the article “Storytelling as an Instructional Method: Definitions and Research Questions” (Andrews et al., 2009), it categories storytelling into four major types: