This Learning Lab collection was made to complement the presentation, "Personal Responses to Covid-19: A Digital Storytelling Workshop Using the Smithsonian Learning Lab," for graduate students in Dr. Davide Tanasi's course,  "Virtual Museums," at the University of South Florida.

During the workshop,  co-facilitators Dr. Antonia Liguori (Loughborough University, UK) and Dr. Philippa Rappoport (Smithsonian Office of Educational Technology will demonstrate a variety of techniques to incorporate personal experiences in the exploration and use of museum resources. They will share how the Smithsonian Learning Lab and Digital Storytelling (DS) can be used together to access digital resources, build learning experiences, and cultivate collaboration and community over distance.

We will explore artwork from an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, Eye to I: Self-Portraiture as an Exploration of Identity), which compels viewers to consider how self-portraits reflect an artist’s identity through what is revealed and concealed. We will look specifically at the Eye to Eye artworks from the context of social distancing and unrest in the time of Covid-19 as a prompt to make personal connections. 

You will find in this collection:

• a short icebreaker activity using exhibition images to start shifting from a cognitive appreciation of art to a personal connection to museum objects;
• some examples of annotated objects that demonstrate the functionality of the Learning Lab;
• some examples of digital stories made by students and also other educators during previous Digital Storytelling workshops;
• a description of the Digital Storytelling process;
• workshop participants' reflections; 
• supplemental resources. 

#DigitalStorytelling