Dr Christina Fisanick teaching digital storytelling in Honors Composition 250 at California University of Pennsylvania in spring 2018.

Christina Fisanick, PhD has been teaching college English since 1996 with an emphasis in Composition and Rhetoric. She earned a Certificate in Digital Storytelling from the University of Colorado at Denver. In 2012 she began collaborating with Robert O. Stakeley at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From their partnership and affiliations, more than 300 digital stories have been created featuring northern Appalachian history.

Dr. Christina Fisanick and Robert O. Stakeley work with a California University of Pennsylvania Honors student on her digital storytelling project. After more than eight years of collaboration, their first book, Public History as Digital Storytelling: A Guidebook for Educators, was published by Routledge Press (2021). It offers a detailed model of the process Fisanick and Stakeley use to teach digital storytellers and the historical societies with which they work with the hopes that other educators and museum professionals will adopt their unique but highly transferrable methods of community-based research and writing.
Instructors and museum professionals contact Routledge for a desk copy to consider this text for course adoption.
"Few educators have utilized digital storytelling to immerse their students in community relationships and history as much as Dr. Christina Fisanick. The work of her students speaks to her absolute commitment to engaged listening and the fostering of community-based, participatory learning. Her partnership with Robert Stakeley is an integral part of process, for together they are preparing a new breed of learners, of listeners, and bridging communities that have been marred by isolation. The students, the community, and the world are richer for it."
Joe Lambert and Daniel Weinshenker
StoryCenter

To learn more about public history as digital storytelling, including how to book a consultation with Fisanick and Stakeley and access to teaching resources visit our website.

Public History Digital Stories

created by honors students at California University of Pennsylvania