Classroom engagement across disciplines through digital storytelling: Exploring personal connections to museum objects in the Smithsonian Learning Lab to strengthen learning communities

In this chapter, Philippa Rappoport and Antonia Liguori reflect on their ongoing research on the use of digital storytelling within the Smithsonian Learning Lab as a participatory approach to bridge the museum with the classroom environment, both in the physical and the digital space.By analyzing multiple experiences across formal and informal education, they explore the value of digital storytelling as a pedagogical tool, enhancing engagement with museum collections and promoting inclusive, participatory learning experiences. By building on the long-standing tradition of object-based learning and the diverse approaches to student-centered learning, they propose the definition of digital storytelling in education as a ‘social laboratory’ for knowledge co-production, where individuals are given the tools to affect social change and build stronger communities.