VI. Evaluate
In the evaluate phase, the designer of the instruction assesses whether the product was successful
in achieving the desired learning goal. In this ADDIE phase, digital story creators use a variety of
measures to determine if the learners achieved the goal for the digital story project and revise the
story and supplemental materials based on this input. Evaluation is also an important part of all of
the four previous phases since revision is also built into each stage.
Guideline 19: Learn to provide useful and supportive feedback to others’ scripts in the
design phase and drafts in the develop phase
There are many opportunities for students to be involved in evaluation of their story as well as the
stories of their peers throughout the entire process, from analysis through development.
Joe Lambert (2010) at the Center for Digital Storytelling, and many others who work with digital
storytelling, endorse the use of Story Circles, where small groups of digital storytellers share aloud
the rough drafts of their scripts in order to get peer feedback about their initial efforts at writing
down their ideas. Students who participate in story circles should remember that they are serving a
valuable service to their fellow students when they ask questions about the scripts and provide
feedback that includes suggestions for how the script might be improved. A potential problem often
occurs since most students want to be nice and not cause any problems by suggesting that a script
has problems. But realistically, how helpful is feedback like this example below?
"I really liked your script and think you did a great job." Or, "You have selected a very interesting
topic and I can't wait to see how your story turns out.”
The truth is that this kind of feedback does not really help the student who wants to improve their
script. It would be much more useful for a student to receive feedback like the comments in these
examples: