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DIGITAL
EDUCATION
AND LEARNING
EDUCATION, NARRATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES AND
DIGITAL LEARNING
DESIGNING STORYTELLING FOR
CREATIVITY WITH COMPUTING
TONY HALL
Digital Education and Learning
Series Editors
Michael Thomas
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, UK
John Palfrey
Phillips Academy
Andover, MA, USA
Mark Warschauer
University of California
Irvine, USA
Much has been written during the first decade of the new millennium
about the potential of digital technologies to produce a transformation of
education. Digital technologies are portrayed as tools that will enhance
learner collaboration and motivation and develop new multimodal liter-
acy skills. Accompanying this has been the move from understanding
literacy on the cognitive level to an appreciation of the sociocultural
forces shaping learner development. Responding to these claims, the
Digital Education and Learning Series explores the pedagogical potential
and realities of digital technologies in a wide range of disciplinary con-
texts across the educational spectrum both in and outside of class.
Focusing on local and global perspectives, the series responds to the shift-
ing landscape of education, the way digital technologies are being used in
different educational and cultural contexts, and examines the differences
that lie behind the generalizations of the digital age. Incorporating cut-
ting edge volumes with theoretical perspectives and case studies (single
authored and edited collections), the series provides an accessible and
valuable resource for academic researchers, teacher trainers, administra-
tors and students interested in interdisciplinary studies of education and
new and emerging technologies.
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14952
Tony Hall
Education, Narrative
Technologies and
Digital Learning
Designing Storytelling for
Creativity with Computing
Tony Hall
School of Education
National University of Ireland Galway
Galway, Ireland
Digital Education and Learning

ISBN 978-1-137-32007-0 ISBN 978-1-137-32008-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-32008-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018938393
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and trans-
mission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: almagami / Alamy Stock Vector
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Macmillan Publishers Ltd. part
of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom
Contents
1 The Age of Autobiography and Narrative Technology 1
2 Educational Design with a Capital D 25
3 The Pestalozzi Principle 53
4 Narrative Technology and the ‘Third Teacher’ 107
5 Evaluating Narrative Technology Design 135
6 SCÉAL Design-Based Research Framework 171
References 181
Index 201
v
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 Clearing the ground for innovation: developing an initial, pro-
totype design model 35
Fig. 4.1 The final setup for the interactive desk (left) and trunk (right) 125
Fig. 4.2 The interactive radio in the Study Room (left), and close-up of
radio (right) showing the dial for selecting objects and the four
frequency channels representing the four mystery artefacts 125
Fig. 4.3 A new opinion (bottom left) is added to the larger vortex of
visitors’ collected opinions 126
Fig. 4.4 View of the Room of Opinion from the Study Room door 127
Fig. 4.5 The replica Stone Ball artefact on its plinth in the Room of
Opinion127
Fig. 4.6 Virtual models of the four mysterious artefacts as displayed in
the Virtual Touch Machine 129
Fig. 4.7 The Virtual Touch Machine in place in the exhibition 130
Fig. 4.8 The final version of the RFID-tagged key-card; this one repre-
sents the Dodecahedron object 130
Fig. 4.9 RFID card collection point: the shelf from which visitors took
tagged key-cards on entering the exhibition 131
Fig. 4.10 From prototype to final design: an early desk design (left) and
(right) the interactive desk in place in the Study Room 131
Fig. 4.11 Student creating her sketch of the Room of Opinion during a
post-visit session in class 133
vii
1
The Age of Autobiography
and Narrative Technology
Introduction
Increasingly, technology seems to be used narratively in society, for exam-
ple, the storying of self through social media. This chapter locates the
research outlined in the book in the contemporary and prevailing, socio-
narrative context, or Age of Autobiography. The chapter provides a defi-
nition of narrative and outlines its foundational role in education,
drawing on key contemporary debates and themes concerning the
salience of storytelling in learning and teaching. This discussion leads
into an introduction to narrative technology, which is defined according
to two broad types: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic narrative technology
can be used to refer to digital tools created with a bespoke storytelling
purpose, for example, animation, micro-blogging and social media.
Extrinsic narrative technology describes those digital tools that—although
perhaps not expressly originally designed for storytelling—can be appro-
priated or repurposed to support engaging and powerful narrative design
of learning. The chapter illustrates narrative technology in action, and
how it can be deployed in different learning contexts to enhance learner
engagement and creativity.
© The Author(s) 2018 1

T. Hall, Education, Narrative Technologies and Digital Learning, Digital Education
and Learning, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-32008-7_1
2 T. Hall
he Creative Educational Potential

T
of Narrative and Storytelling
In a book concerned with creativity, storytelling, technology and educa-
tional design, a good point at which to start is consideration of one of the
foundational tenets of our discussion: narrative and its essential and pow-
erful role in education. And where better to start, perhaps, than a story
about narrative in the classroom.
In his brilliant autobiographical novel, Teacher Man: A Memoir (2005),
wherein he recounted his career as a teacher in America, the writer Frank
McCourt reprised humorous and insightful memories of his time in the
classroom, including his often-inspired efforts to motivate his students
and maintain their interest. Many teachers will be able to relate to
McCourt’s narrative, owing to its universality; every teacher faces the
challenge, every day, of trying to engage their students with the subject
they are teaching, despite students sometimes (or frequently) not want-
ing to engage, often with topics or subjects they might consider unre-
lated, and thus unimportant in their prevailing discourse and everyday
lives. However, as well as the relatable, universal qualities of McCourt’s
classroom stories, we also find them humorous and engaging, precisely
because they surprise and delight us. In addition to being conventional
and thus recognisable by any teacher, the narrative of McCourt’s class-
room is—as we will presently discuss—exceptional and entertaining, and
represents instruction that is different from that which teachers might
normatively do in their classrooms.
We will return to this central theme in the book—what we might call
the Brunerian perspective, predicated on the ideas and writings of the late
educational psychologist, Jerome Bruner (1915–2016), particularly his
conceptualisation of the educational potential of narrative and storytell-
ing. The Brunerian perspective posits that narrative mediates our creativ-
ity by dually affording a common and shared, known structure for human
experience—bestowing a sense of the commonplace and everyday—
while concomitantly affording potential for exceptionality and particu-
larity. This dynamic—between ordinariness and exception—is an
inherently powerful aspect of narrative, which can serve to evoke, exercise
and excite our imagination and creativity.
The Age of Autobiography and Narrative Technology 3
Returning for the moment to Frank McCourt’s classroom: during his

career as a teacher after the Second World War, McCourt taught in dif-
ferent types of schools, including those where very challenging socio-
economic conditions predominated. Typically, in the latter, education
was not valorised outside the formal pedagogical setting of the
classroom.
McCourt found it especially difficult to teach the key skills of writing;
indeed, it traditionally represents one of the toughest areas—of any ele-
ments in the syllabus—for teachers and their pupils to engage with.
However, as we know, writing represents one of the four key activities
underlying all literacy and language learning. It is thus a crucial dimen-
sion of any classroom, and indeed of any educational setting where lan-
guage and literature are being taught.
McCourt was finding it a challenge, if not impossible, to encourage his
students to undertake written tasks, indeed to write anything at all.
Further, it was not only during class-time that students were reluctant to
engage. His pupils very rarely, if ever, completed and turned in the home-
work assigned to them. Indeed, to avoid doing homework, students
would contrive and offer all kinds of imaginative stories, often written up
as forged excuse notes. Passed off as authored by their parents, they would
even claim in these excuse notes that some major catastrophe had befallen
them, which had resulted in the destruction of what would otherwise
have been complete and perfect homework. Of course, these were invari-
ably fictions intended to distract the teacher and avoid, at all costs, the
apparent drudgery of homework. Nonetheless, in composing these narra-
tive artefacts, students were evidencing creativity.
On a more fundamental level, they were writing creatively—exactly
the activity that McCourt was finding hard to encourage and support
through more traditional teaching methods in the classroom.
McCourt’s pupils would produce the most wonderful, creative and
imaginative excuse notes so that they did not have to turn in homework:
“How could I have ignored this treasure trove, these gems of fiction and
fantasy? Here was American high school writing at its best—raw, real,
urgent, lucid, brief, and lying” (McCourt, 2005, p. 85).
For example, one of the fanciful excuse notes read: “Her big brother
got mad at her and threw her essay out the window and it flew away all
4 T. Hall
over Staten Island which is not a good thing because people will read it
and get the wrong impression unless they read the ending which explains
everything” (McCourt, 2005, pp. 85–86). Another of the notes implied
that homework composition, bravely attempted under serious duress,
had potentially created risk of deprivation of liberty: “We were evicted
from our apartment and the mean sheriff said if my son kept yelling for
his notebook he’d have us all arrested” (McCourt, 2005, p. 86).
Comedy, literariness and fictional ingenuity, all evidenced in the excuse
notes produced by his students, who were otherwise struggling to write
and express themselves creatively: “I was having an epiphany. Isn’t it
remarkable, I thought, how the students whined and said it was hard put-
ting 200 words together on any subject? But when they forged excuse
notes, they were brilliant. The notes I had could be turned into an anthol-
ogy of Great American Excuses. They were samples of talent never men-
tioned in song, story or study” (McCourt, 2005, pp. 84–85).
The idea thus occurred to McCourt that perhaps excuse notes could be
used as a pedagogical stratagem—in class—to encourage his pupils to
write, engage and be creative. What if this traditionally ‘anti-educational’
narrative artefact could be used productively for educational purposes?
Consequently, he had his students write excuse notes for famous charac-
ters in history.
The strategy works well pedagogically because a natural location for a
sequel to any literary or historical tragedy would be a courtroom, where
the plaintiff and defendant’s stories are heard, adjudged and sentence
duly passed.
Indeed, a suggested modern method for teaching dramatic texts, for
example, Shakespeare and other areas of the English curriculum—espe-
cially those with a strong narrative design, for example, novel, short story,
is to simulate a courtroom, where the protagonist and antagonist stand
trial, and must answer for the consequences and implications of their
fateful actions. It is suggested as an interactive and critical way to
explore—with students—key literary issues like the Shakespearean
‘Tragic Flaw’, natural and tragic justice, and the moral implications of
characters’ respective decisions and actions.
The simulated courtroom and its accusatory-excusatory dyadic provide
a creative context to promote and represent the student voice, in which
connections can be drawn between the opinions and views of pupils and
the moral of the stories and morality of the characters on trial.
Combining his students’ avowed creativity as authors of elaborate
excuse notes with the need to find ways to engage them more effectively
in class, the idea to encourage his student’s written creativity through
composing excuse notes was an especially innovative and—at the time,
reflecting on it now—a prescient approach to teaching English.
As well as engaging his pupils more effectively, creatively and imagina-
tively in writing, indeed in encouraging them to write anything at all, the
innovation also highlighted the importance and potential of narrative
and storytelling in education, learning and teaching.
Although imaginary and purposefully fictitious, Frank McCourt’s
pupils were making meaningful connections between an autobiographi-
cal and creative narrative format that was familiar in their own lived expe-
rience, and which they had become conversant at—the forged excuse
note—and areas of the curriculum that probably, previously seemed inac-
cessible and irrelevant to them.
In our highly mediated and networked world today, the narrative
mode of autobiography has emerged as a principal communicative and
creative aspect of how we engage with technology. Many of the technolo-
gies we use in our homes and schools are predicated fundamentally on
narrative and autobiography. The ‘storying of self ’ has become a de facto
means by which people use technology to collaborate and communicate
in contemporary society.
A prime example is Facebook, which is a socially mediated, collabora-
tive technology based fundamentally on autobiography—a means for
people to author and narrate digitally their own stories, interests and
perspectives.
Many of the features of Facebook are expressly autobiographical, for
example: the bespoke Your Story button and functionality. Indeed, it is
interesting to note also the recent redesign of Facebook, which aims to
augment the technology’s autobiographical design by focusing more on
personal stories, rather than news items, in users’ news feeds (The
New York Times, 2018).
Micro-blogging is also autobiographical in design, often used for the
expression and sharing of personal moments and perspectives.
6 T. Hall
In the 1950s, Frank McCourt drew on the potential of the autobio-

graphical narrative artefact of the excuse note to support creative writing
among his pupils, and today we use autobiographical, social media tools,
for example, Facebook and Twitter, to communicate ourselves and our
identities, and to connect with others.
As McCourt utilised the potential of the excuse note, we can also cre-
atively deploy narrative and autobiographical technologies in education
today, to support collaboration, communication and creativity.
So, what are the implications for educational technology design in this
apparent Age of Autobiography? Further, how can we utilise the bio-
graphical and narrative potential of new technologies for learning, teach-
ing and assessment, in a spirit of educational innovation akin to that
demonstrated by Frank McCourt in his contemporary use of the excuse
note?
In this opening chapter, we will clear the ground for looking at the
design of narrative technology in education by first considering the salient
features of narrative and how it effects and maintains a profound impact
as a foundational conceptual and communicative construct in education,
learning and teaching.
Education as Narrative Process and Product

Why is it that narrative and storytelling are so important in education,
throughout all aspects of learning, teaching and assessment?
What are the key features of narrative that define and illustrate its edu-
cational potential and purpose?
In this exposition of narrative as a salient educational construct, we
will engage with a range of converging and contrasting views of the edu-
cational import of storytelling, especially as it is construed and applied in
the fields of educational psychology, educational philosophy and narra-
tive theory.
Before exploring the literature relating to narrative as a construct that
is fundamentally central to education, it might be helpful to define what
we mean by narrative and how it compares and contrasts with concepts
of story and storytelling.
Thus, what is our epistemology of narrative? What are its distinctive

characteristics and features as an area of importance and potential for
human creativity and learning? And what is narrative’s epistemic relation
to story and storytelling?
Etymologically, narrative ostensibly emerged from the Latin word nar-
rativus—‘telling a story’; narrative is thus originally connoted with ‘story’
as an abridgement of, and a move to personalise, the word ‘history’.
However, the origins of narrative and storytelling are still more ancient.
Fisher (1985, p. 5) noted the original, historical importance of narra-
tive in the earliest emergence and development of human civilisation: “In
the beginning was the word, or more accurately, the logos. And in the
beginning, logos meant story, reason, rationale, conception, discourse,
and/or thought.” Furthermore, Fisher highlighted the epochal ubiquity
of narrative across human endeavour and enterprise, activities and experi-
ences: “All forms of human expression and communication-from epic to
architecture, from biblical narrative to statuary-came within its
purview.”
Fisher’s seminal work on narrative exemplifies how our crafting of nar-
ratives and sharing of these stories has traditionally been synonymous
with how we mediate and understand our culture and technology—with
the very foundations of human thought and creativity. This theme reso-
nates in educational psychology and philosophy today. A key theme of
education today, and of educational philosophy and psychology in par-
ticular, is wellbeing or flourishing (Seligman, 2011). Narrative represents
a significant part of contemporary discourses and research on mental
health and wellbeing—indeed narrative methods are frequently employed
as a principal form of modern psychotherapy (White & Epston, 1990).
Taking up and expanding further the point about narrative and mental
wellbeing, a very significant contemporary development in psychology,
particularly mental health and the therapies, is the emergence of positive
psychology. One of the most popular framings of positive psychology
today is Seligman’s PERMA (2011) framework, which defines positive
disposition and wellbeing as founded on five key pillars: positive emotion,
relationships, accomplishment, engagement and meaning. These five salient
areas of life are considered mutually interdependent in individual and
collective happiness.
8 T. Hall
One of the founding developments in the origins of this important

field of psychotherapeutic practice and research was the work of Viktor
Frankl, an Austrian doctor and Holocaust survivor. The need for mean-
ingful pedagogy, which contributes to positive self-narrative and ideas of
our worth and capabilities, is particularly important in the current edu-
cational context and society, where mental health issues and the impera-
tive to address them effectively are of urgent concern.
An example is the recent reform of the Junior Cycle (12–15 years)
Curriculum at post-primary level in Ireland, which places the student’s
wellness at the heart of a new, revised syllabus. This reform of the entire
junior school approach at secondary level aims to promote learning and
skills that are more oriented to what young people need to be well-
adjusted and successful in life; an attempt to de-privilege the historical
overemphasis on rote learning for summative, terminal state examina-
tions. Subjects such as social, personal and health education and physical
education have been integrated together to try to foreground and provide
a more coherent and sustained approach to young people’s emotional and
social wellbeing.
Some of the highly influential early works on positive stories of self or
noögenic narrative originated with Frankl’s magnum opus, Man’s Search
for Meaning, originally published in 1946.
Viktor Frankl’s research and writing emerged to international acclaim
after the Second World War, and achieved particular prominence in the
1960s, during times of significant social change and tumult in the US
and internationally.
Frankl’s central concern in his work was to answer the question, what
is the meaning of our life-story, our ontogenetic narrative? Does it have a
meaning, a purpose, a creative orientation? Also, when inevitable dis-
junctures and tensions arise in that narrative, what are we to do? How can
we deal with the inevitable failures and frustrations of life—the plot
breakdowns in our autobiography, which upset the cogence and coher-
ence of our life-narrative?
Frankl asserted that challenges, difficulties and problems are all inevi-
table in life. He did not mean to argue that we should necessarily seek out
hardship for ourselves, but when it unavoidably arises, our attitude is key.
Frankl’s particular area of interest in framing a positive psychology of life
was existential crisis: when the narrative of our life seems only to evoke
hopelessness, what he termed noögenic neurosis.
Frankl asserted that psychic trauma and concomitant noögenic neuro-
sis arise due to fractures in the logos of our lives, or our logocentric sense
of self, that is, a loss of meaning (logos/narrative) and feelings of hope-
lessness that can accompany this. Frankl argued that even in moments of
total despair and apparent hopelessness, there is still meaning. He con-
tended that even in our moments of greatest challenge, it is our funda-
mental, defining and shared characteristic to choose our attitude to our
fate—our unique human quality to turn a tragedy into a triumph.
For Frankl, the key role of the therapist is not to narrate or tell the
patient the meaning of their lives, but rather to help them to uncover it
for themselves, potentially using alternative narratives and points of view,
including humour to help the person experiencing noögenic neurosis to
find the idiosyncratic, unique meaning of their life-story; as Frankl would
say, to help the patient—in a clinical setting—to see the meaningfulness
of their lives, even when they are experiencing trauma or living through
a difficult or challenging, even seemingly intractable, problem or situa-
tion. Life is thus conceived of as a noögenic narrative—an incontrovert-
ibly purposeful autobiography—where meaning is omnipresent, even
when we are faced with the most difficult of challenges or potentially
unresolvable issues. Frankl argued that even when the conditions or cir-
cumstances we find ourselves in appear hopeless, there is always meaning.
We just need to seek and to see it; and the right narrative, at the right
time, can be crucial in all this.
Frankl proposed a positive-oriented, narrative approach to life and
education, which he called Logotherapy, and which focused on seeking
meaningfulness, even when we are faced with the most difficult or dire
situations in life. As we will presently explore in the next chapter, the
contemporary design of educational innovations and technologies nor-
matively has two outcomes or impacts—proximal and distal (McKenney
& Reeves, 2012).
Firstly, a design or innovation effects impact on a local or proximal
level, evidenced by the narrative or story of an educational experience
over time, which enumerates a process of learning and illustrates for the
reader how this process unfolded; how it affected learners and impacted
10 T. Hall
positively on their learning and how it and might be repeated and/or

replicated. The contribution of the design with educational technology—
its story and impact on learners over time—is a significant research con-
tribution as it provides a detailed narrative blueprint for others who
would like to develop educational technology to achieve similarly inno-
vative impacts in their respective contexts of learning.
Secondly, in educational design research (EDR), by reflecting on our
local achievements with educational technology in the broader theoreti-
cal context, we attempt to make an ontological contribution to the
advancement of the broad ‘science of learning’—corroborating or chal-
lenging extant concepts and theories of learning through critical analysis
of the data emerging from our local innovations and interventions. This
is the distal contribution of EDR, and typically results in the develop-
ment of bespoke models or frameworks for the principled design and
evaluation of technology-enhanced learning.
As we will discuss in Chap. 2, these frameworks are typically com-
prised of criteria, guidelines and principles to help orient and inform
ensuing or subsequent research with similar educational technologies in
cognate contexts. EDR achieves its contribution to research in educa-
tional technology by providing detailed examples of innovations and
their local impact on learners (proximal) alongside broader, ontological
or theoretical insights into learning with technology in context (distal).
Frankl’s book represents a significant contribution along the two planes
of impact, as construed in EDR: the proximal (practical) and the distal
(theoretical).
The book is broken into two parts: the first, a compelling narrative of
his experiences as a doctor in pre-war Austria and his deportation to the
death camps; the second, his theorisation of meaningful existence and
noögenic narrative, even when we are faced with the most problematic of
speed bumps and roadblocks, which life will inevitably throw in our
path.
If we construe or see life as a story or narrative—with different charac-
ters, themes, dramatic tensions, dénouements, emplotments and so
forth—then what is the meaning of that story? Frankl outlined three
ways in which we can find meaning and purpose in life, even when our
circumstances appear utterly hopeless:
1. through accomplishment/achievement—by completing a task or

doing a deed;
2. through recognising another person’s or other people’s unique poten-
tial and helping them to realise that potential; and
3. perhaps most crucially, through the attitude we take towards unavoid-
able suffering.
Alongside contemporary narrative conceptions of life and meaningful

existence, including noögenic narrative, storytelling and narrative meth-
ods are among the most popular means of helping people experiencing
what Frankl would term existential crisis or noögenic neurosis.
Bruner (2002), one of the key thinkers in the narrative psychology of
mind, human development and learning, echoed Frankl, particularly in
respect of the importance of a positive attitude to life. He noted the risks
of narrative therapy, if therapeutic practice, especially our stories of self
become caught in, and reflect a negative conception of selfhood. When
this happens, rather than providing a help to us, narrative therapy—when
the story of self and our lives becomes subsumed in circular, self-
proliferating and overly critical and negative rhetoric—can actually prove
unhelpful, even damaging. It can in fact cause deeper, more prolonged
anguish, rather than helping us to find acceptance and appreciate the
meaning of our human suffering. Therefore, the positive framing of the
life-story as a coherent, noögenic narrative can be crucially important in
helping us to find meaning when life challenges us with its unavoidable
failures and frustrations.
Beyond its importance to the education and wellbeing of the individ-
ual, educational designers and researchers are deploying narrative meth-
ods to involve key stakeholders inclusively and meaningfully in all areas
of educational change and innovation, including school building design
and the architecting and building of innovative physical environments
for learning and teaching. Recent research has employed storytelling—
biographical and auto-ethnographical methods—to elicit and frame
teachers’ experience of their classrooms and changes to these learning
spaces over time, and how this particularly has impacted upon their
teaching practices and their pupils’ educational experiences (Tondeur,
Herman, De Buck, & Triquet, 2017). The rich data elicited from these
12 T. Hall
stories spanning teachers’ entire careers in classrooms are being used to

inform conceptualisation of the design of innovative contemporary
school buildings and physical learning spaces. What is furthermore inter-
esting about this use of narrative is that it highlights how storytelling is
ubiquitous as a tool for research and development in education, from the
immediate local educational experience and wellbeing of the individual
pupil right up to how we architect and build the physical environments
in which their learning takes place.
Narrative is fundamentally central to education; as Kieran Egan’s
(1989) ground-breaking work on the subject outlines, good teaching is
good storytelling. Egan contends that we can augment our design of our
lessons and teaching by directly drawing on the dramatic potential of
storytelling. Egan argues that in each subject domain in the curriculum,
there are dramatic questions, and teachers can effectively engage learners’
imaginations by tapping into and utilising this narrative potential that is
extant in each and every subject in the curriculum. The teacher’s role, in
engaging their students, can be made much easier if they can identify and
make use of this storytelling potential throughout their lessons. Frank
McCourt exploited the creative potential of storytelling through using
the narrative innovation of the excuse note as a strategy to create engage-
ment and facilitate creative writing by his students.
In respect of narrative research more broadly, Speedy (2008) has
described how researchers are developing new genres of research that seek
to make ordinarily silenced, unspoken or contested knowledge visible,
and thus actionable and transformative. Consequently and importantly,
narrative research can entail alternative and creative conceptions of
research methodology, including poetical, performative and processual
approaches that offer the potential of novel insights, including the trans-
gressive and emancipatory. This is centrally important, for, as Riessman
(2008) outlined, subjectivity is inherently dynamical and fluid, and
mediated through the stories and narratives people tell themselves, and
others, about who they are. Crucially, salient and essential aspects of
human subjectivity are often latent in our silences, as well as explicated in
our shared expressions. Narrative methodologies—including artistic and
poetical modalities—can help to surface and highlight key dimensions of
the subjective self (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000), and thus support us to
challenge prevailing and problematic hegemonies.
In education, the import of narrative, and the stories we construct and

share has recently become further highlighted in the tension between so-
called small and big data concerning pupil learning, numeracy and liter-
acy in schools internationally. Aggregated and large data sets, for example,
PISA and TIMSS, typically receive significant political and media atten-
tion; however, the stories of success at the level of the local can often be
glossed over and underreported/underrepresented. There is so much
indispensable knowledge to glean about educational innovation and
achievement through the local narratives of classrooms and schools,
which has led key educationists to note the imperative that we balance
the big data with these so-called small data (Sahlberg & Hasak, 2016);
not to do so entails we miss out on understanding what truly constitutes
excellent educational practice.
The Narrative Mode of Thought

Therefore, when we consider its primordial origins and importance across
human intellectual and social endeavour, how are we to construe what
narrative entails, and how might we interpret its meaning for our pur-
poses in defining and exploring the conceptualisation, design and evalu-
ation of narrative technology in education?
For the purposes of this book, we will consider narrative to be gener-
ally synonymous with story and its gerund, storytelling. Further, in com-
mon parlance today, we also have the transitive verbal form of narrative:
to narrativise, and to story (or storify), which means to create a narrative
or story—to place experiences and event(s) in narrative or story-form.
An additional term in modern usage, mostly in the academic commu-
nity, is narratology, which can be defined as the systematic study of
story/storytelling in different fields, for example, education, psychology,
the health and therapeutic sciences, and literature.
This book aims to make a contribution to the narratology of design for
educational storytelling, particularly the conceptualisation, design,
deployment and evaluation of narrative technologies in different contexts
of learning, formal and informal.
14 T. Hall
The contiguity of chronology, sequence and time are central in story-

telling. When we conceive of narrative or story, it typically has a norma-
tive or archetypal logic and structure.
There is a beginning and, or backstory, a context in which happenings
will be suggested, described and located. There usually ensues further
exposition of the initial setting or suggestion of context, which adds fur-
ther detail to the development of the story, which then ultimately leads
to a climax and/or denouement of conflicts, issues or tensions. Even
when we are being told an emotive story by someone who is upset, where
they struggle to convey what has happened, we might ask them for some
context, to go back to the beginning. We are attuned to, and highly
familiar with, a normative structure in narrative/story—the beginning,
middle and end.
In film and screenwriting, in concert with the mise-en-scène, the phys-
ical features and location, which add so much colour and feeling to the
filmic story, three-part narrative is a common story structure. This funda-
mental story architecture encompasses a ternary of interdependent ele-
ments or stages: (1) the setup, (2) the confrontation and (3) the
resolution.
Therefore, narrative is normatively chronological and sequential—
including when it is emplotted in a non-linear fashion. There is an inher-
ent time-ordered structure and sequence that—to borrow the language of
film—temporally frames the story.
For example, when relating a narrative or story of an event, a story that
reprises an event that happened last week, the narrator will typically out-
line the location, time, sequence of events, their actions and/or those of
others—the apparent ordering and unfolding of things.
Even where the story of past events is related in a discordant or disor-
dered fashion, there is a notional temporal arrangement to proceedings;
the time and sequence of related matters, and their expression, are canon-
ically essential to narrative and storytelling.
As Fisher outlined, the original development and use of story was for
meaning—the mediation of the logos.
Interestingly, modern thinking on the nature of meaning in human
learning and psychology, particularly in relation to mental health (e.g.
Frankl), has reaffirmed, or returned to, the fundamental concept of the
logos, or meaning. Furthermore, a strong conception of the logos or

meaning—in self-narrative and the story of our own lives—is highlighted
as centrally important to our mental health and wellbeing.
Therefore, since the earliest understandings of how we conceptualise
and think about our world, narrative and story have been seen as essen-
tially meaningful processes of ascribing or assigning explanations and
rationalisations to others’ experiences and ours.
Furthermore, all learning is predicated on meaning-making, which
underscores the importance of narrative—as a conduit for personal and
shared understanding—in education, learning and teaching.
For the educational psychologist, the late Jerome Bruner—one of the
leading thinkers and writers on narrative in psychology, education and
law, narrative is a prevailing means by which we create, communicate and
collaborate. Bruner ascribed such importance to narrative that he even
asserted it entailed its own particular conceptualisation and branch of
educational inquiry, particularly as pertains to the psychology of learn-
ing—that which Bruner termed the narrative mode of thought. The
Brunerian perspective is that narrative represents a predominant, if not the
most important, means by which we make sense of the world and our
place in it. We use narrative and storytelling to communicate, express and
define ourselves. Bruner posited that the influence of narrative extends
throughout our lives. As children, we are even compelled to develop our
linguistic competencies in an order of priority such that we can produc-
tively partake in the narrative and story-suffused culture of our parents and
peers. For Bruner, the very sequence of linguistic development is deter-
mined by the imperative to engage narratively in the storytelling practices
that are ubiquitous in our social contexts and physical environs. Following
from the famous works of Aristotle, particularly his concept of peripeteia—
‘the twist in the tale’—and latterly the Russian Formalist poets and writers
of the early twentieth century, and their concept of Ostranie (estrange-
ment), Bruner (2007) saw narrative as having a dyadic, tensive structure—
serving a dual purpose of bestowing both ordinariness and exceptionality
on our human experiences. Bruner (2007) argued that narratives and
stories help us to ascribe a canonical ordinariness to our everyday and
lived experiences. They provide us with a structure to make sense of what
might otherwise be intractably complex phenomena. At the same time,
16 T. Hall
we use stories to explore beyond the everyday, to create, envision, engage

with, understand and reflect on exceptional moments in our lives, and in
the dramatic stories we read in books and watch on both the small and
big screen. This is what compels us about great literature and writing—
the movement between the everyday and the extraordinary. According to
Bruner, it is precisely this dynamic tension between the everyday and the
exceptional in storytelling that makes it so humanly and educationally
powerful, infusing learning and life with creative possibility.
For example, we can see this dynamic interplay of the everyday and the
exceptional if we apply Bruner’s Aristotelian theorisation of narrative to
arguably the most famous bildungsroman (educational novel) series in
literary history: Harry Potter. The main protagonist is an ordinary child—
representative of children all over the world—yet he has exceptional tal-
ents and experiences. The story is compelling for us because of its dual
everydayness and exceptionalness. The Russian Formalist writers saw in
the exceptionality of creative narrative the important potential of
estrangement from the blithe, unconsidered acceptance of reality—what
they termed Ostranie (estrangement). For Viktor Shklovsky and his con-
temporaries, the crucial importance of metaphor, poetry and literature is
to make us pause and reflect, to help us to see things differently and criti-
cally, reminding us of the intrinsic strangeness of existence. Aristotle
referred to the instructional potential of narrative as the coda or moral of
the story—the lesson we can learn from the experiences and fate of a
story’s characters. Furthermore, as well as mobilising and inspiring our
creativity, the interplay of the everyday and the exceptional in narrative is
inherently instructional—what I call auto-pedagogical.
For example, some of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies are intended
to teach the audience what/what not to do and think, especially in rela-
tion to authority and monarchy. In both Macbeth and Hamlet, for exam-
ple, the consequences of murdering the king are dire, both for the
individuals directly involved and for the nation state as a whole. These
plays sound a warning that regicide can only lead to destruction and is a
quick route to chaos—personal and societal. At the conclusion of
Macbeth, both the main character and his wife are dead, while in Hamlet
the country ends up in servitude to a foreign power.
For Bruner, narrative is foundational and ubiquitous in the develop-
ment of our identity—our sense of the world, of ourselves and of our
fellow human beings: “It is our preferred, perhaps even our obligatory
medium for expressing human aspirations and their vicissitudes, our own
and those of others. Our stories also impose a structure, a compelling
reality on what we experience, even a philosophical stance” (2002, p. 89).
According to Bruner, life itself is autobiographical—we are each the
protagonist, the main character in our own, ontogenetic narrative.
Furthermore, narrative helps our culture and society to cohere, persist
and grow; stories provide an “enormous amount of unification within a
society” (Bruner, 2007).
Our guiding philosophy of narrative in this book is predicated on key
research and writing in the field, inspired principally by Bruner’s narra-
tive theory of the mind, human development and education. Bruner’s is
sometimes called the functional approach to narrative; such is the funda-
mental importance he attached to storytelling in helping us to function,
both educationally and experientially.
Bruner posited that the influence of narrative extends throughout our
lives, bestowing meaning and structure on what we experience. He fur-
thermore provided us with three fundamental narrative principles for
education:
1. Multiplicity: there are many possible ways of knowing;

2. Perspectival: our interpretation of anything is shaped by our world-
view, which challenges the verifiability of human understanding;
3. Comparative: the scope of our understanding is affected by the exis-
tence of alternative ways of knowing or seeing the world.
The aim of education should be to support learners to move towards

attaining Bruner’s three principles so that they can: (1) be creative, visu-
alise and engage with many possible ways of knowing; (2) come to
understand better their own weltanschauung (worldview)—become criti-
cal thinkers and (3) be broadly informed and draw on alternative ways of
knowing or seeing the world, themselves and others.
However, as well as the narratological position that holds that narrative
is an essential aspect of education, life and human experience generally,
there are contradistinct views concerning the educational importance of
narrative.
18 T. Hall
In Against Narrativity (2004), Strawson critiqued and refuted what he

has defined as the two key aspects of the prevailing narratological view in
education. Firstly, he argued against the psychological Narrativity thesis:
the view that narrative is the principal means by which people live in, and
make sense of their world. Strawson contended that we do not necessarily
need a strong narrative conception of life and our role in the world. We
can get along absolutely well without a narrative structure for our lives.
Secondly, he problematised and refuted the ethical Narrativity thesis, the
normative position that narrative is essential to leading an ethical and
productive existence: the good life.
Although such important critical insights are emerging from counter-
vailing positions in relation to narratology in education, pointing to
potential limitations of narrative and storytelling in human experience
and ontogenetic development, the view that inspires and undergirds this
book is that narrative is a foundational and powerful mediating tool in
the development of human understanding, culture and society.
Consequently, in education, a key goal for innovative information and
communications technology (ICT) should be to augment learners’ cre-
ativity through storytelling. Furthermore, digital convergence and the
innovative and sophisticated storytelling potential of new technologies
are enabling new possibilities to enhance narrative pedagogical practice
in classrooms, schools and other educational environments, for example,
exploratoria and museums.
Bruner (2007) would go as far as to contend: “There is no culture in the
world without stories.” Schank (1990, p. 16) defines human intelligence
specifically by its relation to narrative: “All we have are experiences—but
all we can effectively tell others are stories. Knowledge is experiences and
stories, and intelligence is the apt use of experience and the creation and
telling of stories.” For Bruner, narrative and storytelling are so innately a
part of human experience that we are born to structure the world narrato-
logically—in story-form; to the extent that it formatively and intrinsically
shapes our nascent literacy: “One of the most ubiquitous and powerful
discourse forms in human communication is narrative. Narrative struc-
ture is even inherent in the praxis of social interaction before it achieves
linguistic expression; it is a ‘push’ to construct narrative that determines
the order of priority in which grammatical forms are mastered by the
young child” (1990, p. 77).
Narrative Technology
In recent years, technology has emerged that potentially creates new pos-
sibilities for narrativity, creativity and creative education. The research
informing this book aims to explore innovative possibilities for education
by combining potentially powerful human storytelling processes and new
and emerging ICTs. How might the synergy of storytelling and comput-
ing—what we define as narrative technology—create new potential for
education, learning, teaching and assessment?
Having considered the broad philosophical importance of narrative
and storytelling in education, life, human discourse and development, we
will now focus in on how technology can be used to augment storytelling
in education. In particular, we will outline two innovative uses of what
we term intrinsic narrative technology, using ICTs specifically designed
to support creativity with storytelling.
Intrinsic Narrative Technology

In this section we consider two simple but creative uses of narrative tech-
nology in education. The first focuses on the use of the intrinsic narrative
technology of stop-frame animation software by groups of intergenera-
tional learners (retired citizens in the community, school children and
teachers, working together with artists and writers) to develop collabora-
tive animations based on famous epic tales drawn from Celtic Mythology.
The second looks at the use of micro-blogging technology, Twitter spe-
cifically, to support and enhance teachers’ simple but effective use of tech-
nology to mediate creative engagement with Shakespeare.
Pádraig Pearse, the Irish educator, educational innovator and revolu-
tionary, argued the central importance of storytelling in education. In
the ‘Back to the Sagas’ section of his seminal educational tract, The
Murder Machine, he famously wrote: “A heroic tale is more essentially a
factor in education than a proposition in Euclid” (1916). The first
example of narrative technology outlined is the use of simple stop-frame
animation software to support intergenerational groups of learners to
develop imaginative animated retellings of classic, heroic tales from
20 T. Hall
Celtic and Irish Mythology. The overall goal of the project, entitled
Living Scenes 3 (LS3), was to foster intergenerational learning—differ-
ent ages learning and working creatively together—by orchestrating the
groups to take key excerpts/moments from the heroic tales of Fionn mac
Cumhaill and the Fianna—and render and narrate them in animated
form using the bespoke intrinsic narrative technology of stop-motion
technology. LS3 was so called because there had been two previous
intergenerational projects; however, this was the first with a focus spe-
cifically on storytelling and technology with animation.
Working with local artists and writers, the first stage in the process
entailed the groups of children and retired citizens developing scripts for
their animated tales, including a narrative for the voice-over and the main
characters in the story. Alongside their written scripts, the groups also
had to develop storyboards illustrating how the stories were to unfold
and the different scenes in their animations. Once the intergenerational
groups had developed their script and storyboard, they implemented
their narrative design using easy-to-use stop-motion technology. While
LS3 used Kudlian Software’s I Can Animate proprietary, stop-frame ani-
mation software for the digital stories, any animation or digital video
editing software could have been used. In general, stop-frame animation
software is easy to comprehend and work with; the fundamental princi-
ple of animation means that most digital image capture and editing tech-
nology can be used to create animated narratives. It simply entails learners
taking single still images of an object, moving the object(s) while keeping
the digital camera in a fixed position, and subsequently piecing the images
together—as seamlessly as possible—into a coherent narrative sequence.
This duly renders the effect of motion. The learner can then take the raw
animated movie file and import it into easy-to-use video editing software
and add in sound effects, music, voice-over and so on.
Supported by the local artists and writers, the intergenerational groups
developed collaboratively characters/figurines from plasticine; coordinated
the movement and animation of their miniature figures, representing the
key protagonists in their stories; recorded voice-overs for narrator and dia-
logue between characters; and selected and integrated appropriate music
and sound effects. Facilitated by the well-known local writers and artists,
they creatively developed their scripts into stop-frame animations, which
re-imagined the story of Fionn, including a contemporary interpretation

of this famous Irish narrative.
This project demonstrated the educational potential of intrinsic narra-
tive technology, such as animation software—technology that is purpose-
fully developed to enhance and support creativity through storytelling.
The second project involving intrinsic narrative technology centred on
the use of social media and micro-blogging, Twitter in particular, to sup-
port creative engagement and storytelling in relation to Shakespeare and
specifically his tragedy, Macbeth. In a sense, the role of the teacher in the
classroom is that of an animator and entertainer. The teacher must imbue
their subject with life, make it sentient and interesting for pupils, includ-
ing using humour to promote engagement and interest. Frank McCourt
achieved this excellently, using his students’ avowed creativity in forged
excused notes to explore the school curriculum in ways that were engag-
ing and relevant to them.
Technologies that can intrinsically afford narrative creativity, such as ani-
mation and social media (e.g. Twitter), can help teachers to engage creatively
with their subject and/or specialist area of the curriculum, thereby explor-
ing creative ways to communicate a topic(s) engagingly to their pupils.
The use of Twitter in the classroom involved students developing
tweets to summarise Macbeth, aspects of its plot structure and characteri-
sation. The potential of Twitter emerges from the challenging but creative
structure one must work within. It provides us a narrative frame—there
is a nascent ‘grammar’ or structure we must work within, but we can also
infuse this with our own inventiveness. Brevity and concision are crucial,
because one is constrained by 140 characters; however, the possibility of
using creative hashtags, for example, can generate potential for imagina-
tive expression. The task set for the students asked them literally to pro-
vide a précis of Macbeth in a 140-character tweet, drawing on popular
culture for ideas. In November 2017, the length limit for tweets was
expanded to 280 characters.
The use of the intrinsic narrative technology of Twitter mediated
creative engagement with Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It provided the stu-
dents and teachers a way into engaging with and representing the plot
and characters of the play, within a concise but creative storytelling
framework.
22 T. Hall
Conclusion
In this chapter we have reviewed salient literature, thinkers and writers on
the importance of narrative and storytelling in culture, education and
society, and we have posited the idea of narrative technology: the conver-
gence of traditionally powerful storytelling and new ICTs. We can classify
this convergence of narrative and technology as intrinsic and extrinsic.
Intrinsic narrative technology refers to digital tools created with a
bespoke storytelling purpose, for example, animation, micro-blogging
and social media. Extrinsic narrative technology describes those digital
tools that—although perhaps not expressly originally designed for story-
telling—can be appropriated or repurposed to support engaging and
powerful narrative design of learning.
Building on from this initial chapter, we will now focus on the design
of extrinsic narrative technology, where this entailed the development of
a whole interactive physical learning environment. However, before enu-
merating the design of this innovative computer-enhanced (built) physi-
cal learning space, we will in the next chapter first outline the importance
of educational design and design-based research (DBR). In particular, we
explore in detail the importance of genuinely principled and participa-
tory ‘design with a capital D’, in the contemporary context of educational
change and complexity. Collaborative and systematic design is warranted
to try to ensure that high-potential, innovative technology is utilised
optimally in educational settings. EDR can provide us a creative frame-
work so we are well positioned to conceptualise, design, implement and
evaluate educational technologies in an effective and bespoke fashion,
with and for learners. This next chapter outlines a particular approach to
DBR, illustrated with insights, vignettes and practical tips for we can
design effectively our design of creative narrative technology, to help
ensure impact on learning, teaching and assessment.
References
Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. (2002). Making Stories: Law, Literature, Life. New York: Farrar Straus
& Giroux.
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One of the things on which the members of the mission laid stress
in their request for the elevation of the school to the rank and title of
a college was that it already had “a good collection of philosophical
and chemical apparatus, believed to be the largest and best-
assorted collection in China.” Dr. Mateer also was accustomed to
speak of this apparatus with a pride that was an expression, not of
vanity, but of satisfaction in a personal achievement, that was
eminently worth while. For instance, in his letter to his college
classmates in 1897, he said: “I have given some time and
considerable thought and money to the making of philosophical
apparatus. I had a natural taste in this direction, and I saw that in
China the thing to push in education was physical science. We now
have as good an outfit of apparatus as the average college in the
United States,—more than twice as much as Jefferson had when we
graduated; two-thirds of it made on the ground at my own expense.”
It was a slow, long job to produce it. Early in his career as a teacher
in the Tengchow school he had little need of apparatus because the
pupils were not of a grade to receive instruction in physics; but it was
not very long until he recorded his difficulty, for instance, in teaching
pneumatics without an air pump. Some of his instruction at that
general period was given to a class of students for the ministry. He
was always careful to let it be known that his school was in no
degree a theological seminary; he held it to be vital to have it
understood that it was an institution for what we would call secular
instruction, though saturated through and through with Christianity.
But again and again throughout his life he took his share in teaching
native candidates for the ministry; and before the college proper
afforded them opportunity to study western science he was
accustomed to initiate these young men into enough knowledge of
the workings of nature to fit them to be better leaders among their
own people. Thus, writing in his Journal, February, 1874, concerning
his work with the theological class that winter, he said:
I heard them a lesson every day,—one day in philosophy

[physics] and the next in chemistry. I went thus over optics
and mechanics, and reviewed electricity, and went through
the volume on chemistry. I practically gave all my time to the
business of teaching and experimenting, and getting
apparatus. I had carpenters and tinners at work a good part of
the time. I got up most of the things needed for illustrating
mechanics, and a number in optics; also completed my set of
fixtures for frictional electricity, and added a good number of
articles to my set of galvanic apparatus. With my new battery I
showed the electrical light and the deflagration of metals very
well. The Ruhmkorff coil performed very well indeed, and
made a fine display. I had an exhibition of two nights with the
magic lantern, using the oxyhydrogen light. In chemistry I
made all the gases and more than are described in the book,
and experimented on them fully. They gave me no small
amount of trouble, but I succeeded with them all very well. I
made both light and heavy carbureted hydrogen, and
experimented with them. Then I made coal gas enough to
light up the room through the whole evening. Altogether I
have made for the students a fuller course of experiments in
philosophy or chemistry than I saw myself. They studied well
and appreciated very much what they saw. I trust the issue
will prove that my time has not been misspent. I have learned
a great deal myself, especially in the practical part of
experiment-making. It may be that I may yet have occasion to
turn this knowledge to good account. I have also gathered in
all a very good set of apparatus, which I shall try to make
further use of.
It was in this way that the collection was begun. As he added to it

in succeeding years, every piece had a history that lent it an
individual interest. Much of it continued to be produced by his own
hand, or at least under his own superintendence, and at the expense
of himself, or of his friends, who at his solicitation contributed money
for this use. Some of the larger and more costly articles were
donated by people to whom he appealed for help, and therefore
peculiar personal associations clustered about them. For instance,
when home on his first furlough, he met Cyrus W. Field, on a voyage
to Europe, and interested him in the Tengchow School. After
reaching China again, he wrote a letter to Mr. Field and solicited from
him the gift of a dynamo. In the course of some months a favorable
response was received; and, eventually, that dynamo rendered most
valuable service in lighting the buildings. Two friends, whose
acquaintance he had made in the United States,—Mr. Stuart, of New
York, and Mrs. Baird, of Philadelphia,—gave him money to buy a
ten-inch reflecting telescope, with proper mountings and
accompaniments; and when, as so often happens in such matters,
there was a considerable deficit, his “Uncle John” came to the relief.
In ordering through an acquaintance a set of telegraph instruments
he explained that the Board was not furnishing the means to pay for
it, but that it was purchased with his own money, supplemented by
the gifts of certain friends of missions and education.
This must suffice as to the history of that collection of apparatus. It
is, however, enough to show why he had so much pride in it.
It was in 1895 that he laid down the headship of the college. He
took this step all the more readily because in his successor, Rev. W.
M. Hayes, now of Tsingchow fu, he had entire confidence as to both
character and ability. On his arrival in China Mr. Hayes was
immediately associated with Dr. Mateer in the school, and showed
himself to be a thoroughly kindred spirit. He continued at the head of
the college until 1901, when he resigned his position in order to start
for the governor of the province a new college at Tsinan fu. It may
not be out of place to add here that the governor at that time was
Yuan Shih K’ai, a man of large and liberal views, and that there was,
as to the new college he was founding, in the requirements nothing
that made it improper for a Christian and a minister of the gospel to
be at the head of it. It is due to Mr. Hayes to say that in accepting
this position he was confident that he had the approval of nearly all
the missionaries associated with him. However, it was not very long
until Yuan was transferred to the viceroyalty of the province of Chi-li,
which dominates Peking, and a successor took his place in
Shantung, who was of a different mind, and who introduced such
usages into the new institution that Mr. Hayes felt conscientiously
bound to lay down his office. He is now one of the instructors in the
theological department of the Shantung Christian University, into
which the college at Tengchow has been merged.
In the request of the members of the mission for the elevation of
the Tengchow school to the rank and title of a college one of the
articles specifically left the ultimate location of the institution an open
question. The main objection to Tengchow was its isolation. It is
away up on the coast of the peninsula that constitutes the eastern
end of the province, and it is cut off from the interior by a range of
rather rugged hills in the rear. Though a treaty port, its commerce by
sea has long been inconsiderable, and gives no promise of increase.
At the time when that request was made, it is likely that some,
though signing, would have preferred that the college should be
removed down to Chefoo. To any project of that sort Dr. Mateer was
inflexibly, and with good reason, opposed; and it never assumed
such strength as to give him much apprehension. Along in the later
“eighties” and in the early “nineties” the question of location again
arose in connection with the Anglo-Chinese college which Dr. A. P.
Happer, of the Presbyterian missions in China, undertook to found.
He progressed so far as to raise a considerable sum of money for
endowment and had a board appointed for the control. The project at
no stage received the hearty support of Dr. Mateer, though, of
course, so long as it did not threaten hurt to his own college or the
ideas which it represented he did not make any fight against it. Dr.
Happer had long been a missionary in southern China, and was
beyond question earnestly devoted to his work; his idea was that by
means of the Anglo-Chinese college he would raise up an efficient
native ministry for the churches. The conviction of Dr. Mateer was
that, so far as this result is concerned, the institution, by the very
nature of the plan, must be a comparative failure. English was to be
given a large place in the curriculum, and for students it was to draw
especially on such as could pay their own way. In a long letter dated
March 18, 1887, called out by the question of the location of the
proposed college, and signed by Dr. Mateer and Mr. Hayes, they
frankly expressed to one of the secretaries of the Board their
reasons for believing so strongly that an institution conducted on the
plan proposed could not realize the main object which its founder
sought. They had found it necessary years before, in the Tengchow
College, to meet the question as to the introduction of English, and
the decision was in favor of using Chinese alone in the curriculum;
and so long as the school remained in charge of Mateer and Hayes,
they rigidly excluded their own native tongue. When the Tengchow
school was just emerging into the Tengchow College, Dr. Mateer
thus expressed his convictions on that subject:
If we should teach English, and on this account seek the

patronage of the officers and the rich, no doubt we could get
some help and countenance. We would be compelled,
however, to give up in good measure the distinctively religious
character of the school. We would get a different class of
pupils, and the religious tone of the school would soon be
changed in spite of us. Another result would also be almost
inevitable, namely, the standard of Chinese scholarship would
fall. The study of English is fatal to high acquisition in the
Chinese classics. We would doubtless have great trouble in
keeping our pupils after they were able to talk English; they
would at once go seeking employment where their English
would bring them good wages. Tengchow, moreover, is not a
port of foreign residents, but rather an isolated and inland city,
and it would not be a good place to locate a school in which
teaching English is made a prominent feature.
His observation since had served to confirm him in the conviction

of years before, and in the letter to a secretary of the Board, Hayes
united with him in stating clearly and forcibly their joint opinion on the
subject.
In casting about for a location for the Anglo-Chinese college, the
choice narrowed down so that it lay between Canton, Nanking,
Shanghai, and Tientsin. Chefoo was mentioned, but not seriously
considered, yet even the possibility of location there, although
remote, was so important a matter to the Shantung College that it
compelled the men at the head of that institution to be on the alert so
long as the question was undetermined. By and by Dr. Happer
became disposed to turn over the management of his projected
college to some other person, and he wrote to Dr. Mateer, sounding
him as to the vacancy, should it occur. The scheme at that time
seemed to be to locate the new institution at Shanghai, and to unite
with it the Shantung College; and in a long letter in response, written
January 9, 1890, Dr. Mateer went very candidly over the entire
situation. Among other things he said:
It will be necessary, however, to settle the policy of the

college, and also its headship, before making any definite
move. Whoever undertakes to make English and self-support
prominent features, and then aims at a Christian college, has,
as things are at present in China, a difficult contract on his
hands. I for one do not feel called to embark in such an
enterprise, and my name may as well be counted out.... Nor
can the school at Tengchow be moved away from Shantung.
We might go, and the apparatus might be moved; but not the
pupils. It is futile to talk of them or any considerable number of
them coming to Shanghai; nor will pupils go from central
China north to be educated save in exceptional cases. The
distance and the expense are both too great. Each section of
China must have its own schools.
Not long afterward the situation was such that Dr. Mateer and Mr.
Hayes addressed to the trustees of the endowment a paper in which
a suggestion was made that under certain conditions the fund raised
by Dr. Happer should be turned over to the Shantung College. In that
paper there was a frank statement of their attitude as to English.
They were entirely willing to introduce that language, but only under
such conditions that it could not seriously alter the character and
work of the institution. The paper is too long for introduction here. It
will suffice to quote from a letter sent by Dr. Mateer at the same time
to one of the secretaries of the Board, and dated February 9, 1891:
There are one or two things I want to say in a less formal

way. One is that in case our proposition in regard to English is
not satisfactory, you will take care that the proposed school is
not located in Chefoo as a rival of the college in Tengchow. It
would be nothing short of suicidal for the Board to allow such
a proceeding, and would be a great wrong, both to myself and
to Mr. Hayes. We do not propose to engage in such a contest,
but would at once resign, and seek some other sphere of
labor. Again, I wish to call your attention to what is the real
inwardness of our plan for English; namely, to teach it in such
a way, and to such parties only, as will insure its being used in
literary and scientific lines. We will not teach English merely to
anyone, nor teach it to anyone who wants merely English. We
will teach it to men, not to boys. Lastly, Mr. Hayes and I have
for several years had in mind the idea of a post-graduate
course in applied science, and have been waiting for my visit
home to push it forward; and even if the present endowment
scheme fails, we will still feel like pushing it, and introducing
some English as already indicated.
Nothing came of the suggestion that the money should be turned

over to the Shantung institution.
Dr. Mateer still continued to help in the college at Tengchow, as he
had time and opportunity. Early in the “nineties,” and after the
movement just considered had failed to materialize, he solicited from
the Board the privilege of seeking to raise an endowment fund, but at
that time he was unable to secure their consent. At the beginning of
1900 the Board changed their attitude, and authorized an effort to be
made to secure contributions for this purpose. Of course, in order to
be successful in this undertaking, a satisfactory plan for the control
of the college was a necessity; and as to this Dr. Mateer was
consulted, and he gave his opinions freely. His preference was
expressed for a charter giving the endowment a separate legal
status, but providing that the members of the Board of Foreign
Missions, acting in this distinct capacity, should be the trustees. The
general oversight of the institution he thought should be assigned to
a “Field Board of Directors,” composed of members of the Shantung
Mission. This was not a scheme that entirely satisfied him. The
specter, on the one hand, of a diversion of the college into a school
for teaching English, and, on the other, of making it a theological
seminary, would not altogether down; but in the ultimate appeal to
the members of the Board of Foreign Missions he recognized a
safeguard that was not likely to prove inadequate. When he was on
furlough in 1903, he spent a considerable part of his time in soliciting
permanent funds for the college, then already removed to its present
location; but he was unable to secure much aid. Ada was with him;
and she says of his experience in this work, “He was so accustomed
to success in whatever he undertook that it was hard for him to bear
the indifference of the rich to what seemed to him so important.”
The transfer of the college to another location was a question that
would not permanently rest. So long as it was whether it should go
from Tengchow to Chefoo, or be swallowed up in another more
pretentious institution at Shanghai, and not yet in existence, it was
comparatively easy to silence the guns of those who talked removal.
But at the opening of the twentieth century, even out there in north
China, important changes indirectly affecting this problem had
occurred. The missions had been strengthened by a number of new
men, who came fresh from the rush of affairs in the United States,
and eager to put their force into the work in China in such a way that
it would tell the most. Even China itself was beginning to awake from
the torpor of ages. In Shantung the Germans were building railroads,
one of them right through the heart of the province, on by way of Wei
Hsien to the capital, and from that point to be afterward connected
with Tientsin and Peking. It is not strange that, under the new
conditions, the young members of the mission especially should
desire to place the college which loomed up so largely and
effectually in the work to which they had consecrated their lives
where it could be in closer touch with the swarming millions of the
land and with the movements of the new times. February 26, 1901,
Dr. Mateer wrote to the Board:
At a meeting of the Shantung Mission it was voted to

remove the Tengchow College to Wei Hsien, and then give up
the Tengchow station. Being at Shanghai, engaged in the
translation work, I was not able to be present at the mission
meeting, and it seems incumbent on me to say something on
a matter of so much importance, and that concerns me so
much.... First, with reference to the college. The major part of
my life has been given to building up the Tengchow College,
and, of course, I feel a deep interest in its future. As you can
easily imagine, I am naturally loath to see it moved from the
place where Providence placed it; and to see all the toil and
thought given to fitting up the buildings, with heating, lighting,
and the other appliances go for nothing; as also the loss of
the very considerable sums of money I have myself invested
in it. The Providence which placed the college in Tengchow
should not be lightly ignored, nor the natural advantages
which Tengchow affords be counted for nothing. It is not
difficult to make out a strong case for Wei Hsien, and I am not
disposed to dispute its advantages, except it be to question
the validity of the assumption that a busy commercial center
is necessarily the best place to locate a college. In view of the
whole question, it seems to me that unless an adequate
endowment can be secured—one which will put the college
on a new basis—it will not pay the Board to make the sacrifice
involved in moving the college to Wei Hsien.... However, I
would rather go to Wei Hsien than be opposed strongly at
Tengchow.
On that part of his contention he lost; and it would be useless now

to try to ascertain the respective merits of the two sides to that
question. The second part of the letter just cited discussed the
abandonment of Tengchow as a mission station. The plan of those
who took the affirmative of this debate was to leave that city to the
Southern Baptists, who almost forty years before had preceded the
Presbyterians a few weeks in a feeble occupation, but who had been
entirely overshadowed by the development of the college. For the
retention of the station Dr. Mateer pleaded with his utmost fervor and
eloquence. Though the decision remained in uncertainty while he
lived, and the uncertainty gave him much anxiety, large gifts, coming
since, from a consecrated layman, have rendered the retention of
the Tengchow station secure. The wisdom of the decision is
vindicated by present conditions. At the close of 1909 the station
reported a city church with three hundred members; a Sabbath
school which sometimes numbers five hundred pupils; thirty out-
stations with about five hundred members; twenty-four primary
schools, giving instruction to three hundred and sixteen boys and
girls, and taught by graduates of the higher schools of the station; a
girls’ high school with an average enrollment of forty-six pupils, and
for the year then closing having twelve graduates, nearly all of whom
became teachers; a boys’ high school with an attendance of forty,
and sending up a number of graduates to the college at Wei Hsien or
to other advanced institutions, and having a normal department with
a model primary department; and also a helpers’ summer school;
besides other machinery for reaching with the gospel the three
millions of people gathered in the neighborhood of Tengchow. Nor
has the work of the Presbyterians in the least hampered that of the
Southern Baptists.
The actual removal of the college was not effected until the
autumn of 1904. In the interval between the time when it was
determined to take this step and when it was actually accomplished
a number of important things affecting the course of Dr. Mateer’s life
occurred. Mr. Hayes, as elsewhere stated, resigned the presidency;
and Rev. Paul D. Bergen, who had come out to the mission in 1883,
was chosen in his place. Dr. Mateer had been so closely associated
with Mr. Hayes, and had such complete confidence in him, that the
resignation came almost like a personal bereavement; but he rose
nobly out of the depths, and wrote home to the Board: “Mr. Bergen is
clearly the best man that our missions in Shantung afford for the
place. He is very popular with the Chinese, which is much in his
favor. The time is as auspicious as it is important. Educational affairs
are taking a great boom, and it looks as if Shantung was going to
lead the van. If it is properly supported the college should do a great
work.” During the interval here covered Dr. Mateer came to the
United States on his third and last furlough, reaching China again in
the autumn of 1903, and bringing with him some substantial fruits of
his efforts for the college.
On his arrival he was confronted by another great problem as to
the institution. A combination had already been almost effected by
the American Presbyterians and the English Baptists in Shantung for
a union in the work of higher education in the province. The matter
had already gone so far that, although he feared that the scheme
would bring about such radical changes as to endanger the real
usefulness of the institution, yet he made no serious opposition, and
it went steadily forward to consummation. Under the plan adopted
the Shantung Christian University was established; and provision
was made for a joint maintenance of three distinct colleges in it, each
at a different location, chosen because of mission and other
conditions—a college of arts and science at Wei Hsien, a theological
college at Tsingchow fu, and a medical college at Tsinan fu. The plan
also provides for a university council, to which is committed the
general control of the institution, subject, of course, to certain
fundamental regulations; and of this body Dr. Mateer was one of the
original members. The first meeting was held at Tsingchow fu near
the end of 1903. Writing to one of the secretaries of the Board of
Missions concerning this, he said: “All were present. Our meeting
was quite harmonious. We elected professors and discussed and
drew out some general principles relating to the curriculum and the
general management. Theoretically things seem quite promising; the
difficulty will come in practical administration. The buildings at Wei
Hsien are all up to the first floor. There should be no difficulty in
getting all ready by next autumn, at which time the college ought by
all means to be moved.” Early the next summer he wrote: “I started
to Wei Hsien about a month ago, overland. I spent over two weeks
taking down and packing my goods, and so forth, including
workshop, boiler, engine, dynamo, and so forth. I found it quite a
serious undertaking to get all my miscellaneous goods packed up,
ready for shipment on boats to Wei Hsien.... I remained in Wei Hsien
twenty-four days, unpacking my effects, getting my workshop in
order, and planning for the heating and lighting outfit.” In the same
letter he expressed himself as follows concerning the theological
college at Tsingchow fu: “It was certainly understood at the meeting
of the directors last winter that it was to be much more than a
theological seminary in the strict sense of the word. It was
understood, in fact, that it would have two departments,—a training
school and a theological seminary proper. In this way only can the
full measure of our needs be supplied.... With this organization it is
not unlikely that the school at Tsingchow fu will be larger than the
college at Wei Hsien.”
This narrative as to Dr. Mateer and the Shantung College is now
approaching its close, and most readers probably will prefer that, so
far as practicable, the remainder of it shall be told in his own words.
December 21, 1904, he wrote to a friend: “The college is now fully
moved to Wei Hsien, and has in it about a hundred and twenty
students. The new buildings are quite fine,—much superior to those
we had in Tengchow. Mrs. Mateer and I have moved to Wei Hsien to
live and will make this our home. We are living in the same house
with my brother Robert, making all one family. This arrangement
suits us very well. I am not teaching in the college, but I would not
feel at home if I were away from it. I hope it has a great future.” In his
report for himself and wife, for the year 1904-05, he says: “The
greater part of the autumn was spent in overseeing the building and
fitting up of a workshop, and in superintending the setting up of a
new thirty-two horse-power steam boiler for heating and lighting the
college, together with a system of steam piping for the same; also
the setting up of engine and dynamo and wiring the college for
electric lights. I also set up a windmill and pump and tank, with pipes
for supplying the college and several dwelling houses with water. I
also built for myself and Mrs. Mateer a seven-kien house in Chinese
style, affording a study, bedroom, storeroom, box room, and coal
room.” This little, narrow, one-story house constituted their home
during the rest of his life in Wei Hsien, though they still look their
meals with the other family. They sometimes called this house “the
Borderland,” for only a narrow path separated them from the small
foreign cemetery at the extreme corner of the compound. In
November, 1905, he wrote to one of the secretaries of the Board:
“The college is, of course, delighted at the prospect of a Science
Hall. I take some credit for having prepared the way for this gift from
Mr. Converse.” In his report for the year 1906 he said: “During the
early part of the winter I spent considerable time, planning,
estimating, and ordering supplies for the lighting, heating, and water
supply of the new Science Hall at Wei Hsien.”
We are at length face to face with the last stage in the active
connection of Dr. Mateer with the college. February 26, 1907, he
wrote to one of the secretaries of the Board of Missions:
I returned three days ago from the meeting of the College

Directors at Tsingchow fu. The meeting was prolonged and a
very important one. A number of important and embarrassing
questions were before us.... You will hear from others, of
course, and from the minutes, that Dr. Bergen resigned the
presidency of the college, and that in our inability to find a
successor I was asked to take the position temporarily, until
other arrangements could be made, and Dr. Bergen was
asked to remain as a professor, which he agreed to do. This
provided for the teaching, and makes it possible for me to
take the presidency without doing much teaching, which I
could not do under present conditions.
During the period of his service in this capacity the college not only
did well in its regular work; it also made some important advances.
The total attendance was one hundred and eighty-one, and a class
of ten was graduated at commencement. At Tengchow he had
always valued the literary societies very highly, and these now
received a fresh impetus. Several rooms of the new Science Hall
were brought into use; two additional rows of dormitories were built,
one for college and personal teachers and workmen, and one for
students; not to mention lesser matters.
Nevertheless he found his official position in certain ways very
uncomfortable. Some of the reasons of this were casual to the
internal administration, and cannot now be appreciated by outsiders,
and are not worth airing here. Others were of a more permanent
nature, and had to do with the future conduct and character of the
institution. The question of English had been for a while hushed to
sleep; but it was now awake again, and asserted itself with new
vigor. In a letter dated December 19, 1907, he said: “I am strongly in
favor of an English School, preferably at Tsinan fu, but I am opposed
to English in the college. It would very soon destroy the high grade of
scholarship hitherto maintained, and direct the whole output of the
college into secular lines.” His fear was that if English were
introduced the graduates of the institution would be diverted from the
ministry and from the great work of evangelizing the people to
commercial pursuits, and that it would become a training school of
compradors and clerks. Later the intensity of his opposition to the
introduction of English was considerably modified, because of the
advantage which he perceived to be enjoyed in the large union
meetings, by such of the Chinese as knew this language in addition
to their own. He saw, too, that with the change of times a knowledge
of English had come to be recognized as an essential in the new
learning, as a bond of unity between different parts of China, and as
a means of contact with the outside world. Looking at the chief
danger as past, he expressly desired that the theologues should be
taught English. At any rate he had been contending for a cause that
was evidently lost. At this writing the curriculum of the college offers
five hours in English as an optional study for every term of the four
required years; and also of the fifth year. Dr. Mateer, besides, was
not fully in sympathy with a movement that was then making to
secure a large gift from the “General Education Fund” for the
endowment of the institution. In the letter just quoted he says: “The
college should be so administered by its president and faculty as to
send some men into the ministry, or it fails of its chief object. I am in
favor of stimulating a natural growth, but not such a rapid and
abnormal growth as will dechristianize it. I do not believe in the
sudden and rapid enlargement of the plant beyond the need at the
time. It would rapidly secularize the college and divert it entirely from
its proper ideal and work.” These questions were too practical, and
touched the vitals of the institution too deeply, to be ignored by
earnest friends on either side. Some things as to the situation are so
transparent that they can be recognized by any person who looks at
it from not too close a point of view. The entire merits of the
argument were in no case wholly on one side; and as a
consequence it is not surprising that wise and good men differed as
they did; and the only decisive test is actual trial of the changes
advocated by the younger men. It is also perfectly plain that in this
affair we have only another instance of a state of things so often
recurring; that is, of a man who has done a great work, putting into it
a long life of toil and self-sacrifice, and bringing it at length to a point
where he must decrease and it must increase; and where in the very
nature of the case it must be turned over to younger hands, to be
guided as they see its needs in the light of the dawning day. He can
scarcely any longer be the best judge of what ought to be done; but
even if he were, the management must be left for good or ill to them.
That evidently is the fight in which Dr. Mateer came ultimately to see
this matter. He courageously faced the inevitable. In this, as in all
other cases, no personal animosity was harbored by him toward
anyone who differed from him.
October 27, 1907, he wrote to an associate on the Mandarin
Revision Committee: “I have now dissolved myself from the
management of the college, and shall have very little to do with it in
the future. It has cost me a great deal to do it, but it is best it should
be so. I am now free from any cares or responsibility in educational
matters.” In a letter to Secretary Brown, dated December 21, 1907,
he said: “In view of the circumstances I thought it best to resign at
once, and unconditionally, both the presidency and my office as
director. I have no ambition to be president, and in fact was only
there temporarily until another man should be chosen. I did not wish
to be a director when I could not conscientiously carry out the ideas
and policy of a majority of the mission. It was no small trial, I assure
you, to resign all connection with the college, after spending the
major part of my missionary life working for it. It did, in fact, seriously
affect my health for several weeks. I cannot stand such strains as I
once did.”
One of the striking incidents of his funeral service at Tsingtao was
the reading of the statistics of the graduates of the Tengchow
College, including the students who came with the college to Wei
Hsien. These have since been carefully revised and are as follows:
Total receiving diplomas, 205; teachers in government schools, 38;
teachers in church schools, 68; pastors, 17; evangelists, 16; literary
work, 10; in business, 9; physicians, 7; post-office service, 4; railroad
service, 2; Y. M. C. A. service, 2; customs service, 1; business
clerks, 2; secretaries, 1; at their homes, 6; deceased, 22. These
graduates are scattered among thirteen denominations, and one
hundred schools, and in sixteen provinces of China. About two
hundred more who were students at Tengchow did not complete the
course of studies.
The institution since its removal has continued steadily to go
forward. The large endowment that was both sought and feared has
not yet been realized, and consequently the effect of such a gift has
not been tested by experience; but other proposed changes have
been made. A pamphlet published in 1910 reports for the college of
arts and sciences an enrollment of three hundred and six students,
and in the academy, eighty. The class which graduates numbers
seventeen, all of whom are Christians. Down to that year there had
been at Wei Hsien among the graduates no candidates for the
ministry, but during 1910, under the ministration of a Chinese pastor,
a quiet but mighty religious awakening pervaded the institution, and
one outcome has been a vast increase in the number of candidates
for the ministry or other evangelistic work. The pamphlet already
quoted speaks of more than one hundred of the college students
who have decided to offer themselves for this work. It is
appropriately added that “such a movement as this amongst our
students inspires us with almost a feeling of awe.... Our faith had
never reached the conception of such a number as the above
simultaneously making a decision.” It has recently been decided to
bring all the departments of the university to Tsinan fu, the provincial
capital.
In the theological college at Tsingchow fu, according to the last
report, there were eleven students in the regular theological
department and one hundred and twenty-eight in the normal school.
In the medical college at Tsinan fu there were thirteen young men.
The aggregate for the whole university rises to five hundred and
thirty-eight. On the Presbyterian side this all began with those six
little boys, in the old Kwan Yin temple, in the autumn of 1864, at
Tengchow. To-day it is a university, and is second to no higher
institution of learning in China.
It is said that Dr. Mateer never led in prayer, either public or
private, that he did not most earnestly ask that the Lord would raise
up Chinese Christian men, who as leaders would bring many to
Christ. His prayers during the forty-five years of his missionary life
are receiving a wonderful answer at Wei Hsien and at Tsingchow fu.
XII
WITH APPARATUS AND MACHINERY
“The things most likely to be needed in China, are first, electrical

engineering, especially telegraphy, and second, civil engineering,
especially surveying and laying out of railroads. Special preparation in
one or both of these things would be very valuable. But what is more
necessary for immediate use, and as a preliminary to these things, is
a practical knowledge of scientific apparatus,—how to make and how
to use it. I have myself picked it up from books, without any instructor,
but only at a great expense of time and labor.”—letter to a
prospective teacher, October 29, 1888.
Whenever a group of the early acquaintances of Dr. Mateer talked

together about him, one thing certain to be mentioned was his
achievements with apparatus and machinery, both with the making
and with the using of them. Out in China his reputation for this was
so great that it at times came near to being a burden to him. We
have already seen that the temporary superintendence of the
mission press at Shanghai was thrust upon him, contrary to his own
preference, and because, as he expressed it in a letter at that time,
the men in control considered him a “Jack-of-all-trades,” able to do
anything at which he might be put. If they then did really think of him
as no more than a man who with machinery could do a great many
things without performing any of them thoroughly well, they did him a
great injustice, which their subsequent knowledge amply corrected.
As the years went by, and in this sphere of his multifarious activity he
rose to larger and more difficult achievements, his fame as to this
spread far and wide among both natives and foreigners. At no time,
however, did he permit his efficiency in this line to loom up in such a
form or in such a degree as to seem even to others to put his
distinctively missionary labors into the background. It is a significant
fact that in the eulogiums pronounced on him at his death this
feature of his character and work is seldom even mentioned. He was
—first, last, and all the time—a man whose life and whose abilities
were so completely and so manifestly consecrated to the
evangelization of the Chinese that when those who knew him best
looked back over the finished whole, his remarkable achievements
with apparatus and machinery scarcely arrested their attention.
Dr. Mateer himself regarded his efficiency in this sphere as due in
some measure to native endowment. He had an inborn taste and
ability for that sort of work; and stories have come down concerning
certain very early manifestations of this characteristic. It is related
that when he was a little boy he was suffering loss through the raids
made by the woodpeckers on a cherry tree laden with luscious fruit.
He pondered the situation carefully, and then set up a pole, close by,
with a nice lodging place for a bird at the top, and armed himself with
a mallet down at the foot. The woodpecker would grab a cherry, and
immediately fly to the pole in order to eat it; but a sharp blow with the
mallet would bring him from his perch to the ground. So the boy
saved his cherries. It is also related of him that when a mere boy he
had a friendly dispute with his father over the question whether a
sucking pig had the homing instinct. He maintained that it would
return to its mother under conditions that proved the affirmative; and
in order to satisfy himself, he placed a pig in a sack, and took it a
long way from its familiar haunts, and turned it loose. It had been
agreed that the result was to decide the ownership. To his delight,
immediately the pig started on a bee line for home, and never gave
up the race until it was back in its old place.
For the development and application of this natural gift he received
almost no help from others. Probably if that old workbench in the
barn at the “Hermitage” could speak, it might tell something as to
oversight and guidance of the boy by his father, in making and
repairing traps and tools for use in recreation and in work; but
beyond this he had no instruction. In his day at college a chemical or
physical laboratory was supposed to be exclusively for the professor
to prepare his experiments; the student was expected only to be a
spectator in the classroom when the experiments were shown. The
man who occupied the chair of natural philosophy at Jefferson when
we were there had a gift for supplementing his scanty outfit of
apparatus with the products of his own skill and labor, and if the
student Mateer had found his way down into the subterranean
regions where these were wrought, he and Professor Jones would
have rejoiced together in sympathetic collaboration; but no such
unheard-of violation of ancient custom occurred. In the academy at
Beaver he first turned his hand to making a few pieces of apparatus
which he craved as helps in teaching. But it was not until he reached
China that this field for his talent opened before him, and continued
to enlarge all the rest of his life. In fact, even when he was absent
from China, on his furloughs, he did not get away from his work with
apparatus and machinery. During one of his earlier furloughs, while
he was looking up everything that could be helpful to his Chinese
boys, he spent some time in the Baldwin Locomotive Works, by
special permission, in studying the construction of locomotives, so
that he might be able to make a model of one on his return to China.
In connection with this he showed such an acquaintance with the
structure of these engines that he could scarcely convince some of
the skilled mechanics that he had not been trained to the business.
Dr. Corbett wrote concerning him, after his death: “It was my
privilege to meet him at the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893. He had
spent nearly a month there examining minutely many things of
special interest to him. As my time was limited he kindly became my
guide for a while, and gave me the benefit of his observations. We
first visited the department of electricity, which he had carefully
studied in all its various applications. We next went to Machinery
Hall, where he had spent days making drawings, measurements,
and so forth, of the most complex machinery. He seemed to
understand everything as though this had been the work of his life.”
Dr. Hayes says: “Dr. Mateer’s ability to meet exigencies was well
shown a few years ago in Wei Hsien, when suddenly the large
dynamo failed to produce a current. He unwound the machine until
he located the fault, reinsulated the wire and rewound the coil; after
which the machine furnished its current as usual.... Electrotyping
was hardly in general use in the west until he secured an outfit of
tools and taught a class of native artisans. When electric fans came
in vogue he purchased a small one as a model and proceeded to
make another.”

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Education, Narrative Technologies and

Digital Learning Tony Hall

Biota Grow 2C gather 2C cook Loucas

Disruptive Technology Enhanced Learning: The Use and

Falconry Basics A Handbook for Beginners Second Revised

Teaching Learning and New Technologies in Higher

Handbook of Research on Digital Content, Mobile

A Contemporary Theory of Mathematics Education Research

Teaching Economics Perspectives on Innovative Economics

Instructional Leadership and Leadership for Learning in

More information about this series at

Digital Education and Learning

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018938393

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover illustration: almagami / Alamy Stock Vector

Printed on acid-free paper

1 The Age of Autobiography and Narrative Technology 1

2 Educational Design with a Capital D 25

3 The Pestalozzi Principle 53

4 Narrative Technology and the ‘Third Teacher’ 107

5 Evaluating Narrative Technology Design 135

6 SCÉAL Design-Based Research Framework 171

© The Author(s) 2018 1

 he Creative Educational Potential

Returning for the moment to Frank McCourt’s classroom: during his

In the 1950s, Frank McCourt drew on the potential of the autobio-

Education as Narrative Process and Product

Thus, what is our epistemology of narrative? What are its distinctive

One of the founding developments in the origins of this important

positively on their learning and how it and might be repeated and/or

1. through accomplishment/achievement—by completing a task or

Alongside contemporary narrative conceptions of life and meaningful

stories spanning teachers’ entire careers in classrooms are being used to

In education, the import of narrative, and the stories we construct and

The Narrative Mode of Thought

The contiguity of chronology, sequence and time are central in story-

logos, or meaning. Furthermore, a strong conception of the logos or

we use stories to explore beyond the everyday, to create, envision, engage

1. Multiplicity: there are many possible ways of knowing;

The aim of education should be to support learners to move towards

In Against Narrativity (2004), Strawson critiqued and refuted what he

Intrinsic Narrative Technology

re-imagined the story of Fionn, including a contemporary interpretation

I heard them a lesson every day,—one day in philosophy

It was in this way that the collection was begun. As he added to it

If we should teach English, and on this account seek the

His observation since had served to confirm him in the conviction

It will be necessary, however, to settle the policy of the

There are one or two things I want to say in a less formal

Nothing came of the suggestion that the money should be turned

At a meeting of the Shantung Mission it was voted to

On that part of his contention he lost; and it would be useless now

I returned three days ago from the meeting of the College

“The things most likely to be needed in China, are first, electrical

Whenever a group of the early acquaintances of Dr. Mateer talked

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1 The Age of Autobiography and Narrative Technology 1

2 Educational Design with a Capital D 25

3 The Pestalozzi Principle 53

4 Narrative Technology and the ‘Third Teacher’ 107

5 Evaluating Narrative Technology Design 135

6 SCÉAL Design-Based Research Framework 171

he Creative Educational Potential

Education as Narrative Process and Product

The Narrative Mode of Thought

Intrinsic Narrative Technology