Digital Storytelling in Education

Digital storytelling is a term which has been very popular recently, but what does it actually mean?

taken from here

First of all, it is not only about telling a story. It’s about telling stories with a variety of multimedia tools like graphics, images (still or moving) text, audio narration, video, music, sounds etc. and it is a powerful instructional tool in education both for learners and teachers. Telling a story itself is a perfect way to communicate with others and when it is combined with these digital tools it becomes more and more attractive, especially for kids. For this reason, digital storytelling is an engaging and efficient learning activity. Teachers can either create digital stories or guide learners to create their own stories.

Digital storytelling refers to different forms of digital narratives. A digital story can be;

-               - a personal narrative

-               - a story about an event

-               - a biography of a famous person

-               - a description of a process

-               - a description of a place

-               - a story about experiences or interests

-               - a fictional story

-               - a book trailer

-               - an examination of historical themes and events and so on.

Some of the benefits of digital storytelling in education are;

-it develops critical thinking and creativity

-encourages research

-gives learners a voice

-develops learners’ communicative skills

-promotes the notion of independent learning

-develops proficiency with digital tools

There are so many tools to create a digital story online, but you can also create a digital story by using simple technologies such as Microsoft Movie Maker, Photo Story and PowerPoint, which are available for free. 

Here is an example digital story which I’ve created with my friend Büşra. It is a ‘how to’ project and we have given some tips to stay focused.

It was a little bit challenging for us to create a content and find appropriate images to convey the feeling but still it was fun and engaging! I would probably give the same task to my future students because I think digital storytelling gives learners an opportunity to experiment independent learning and create an individual content, also learners have a chance to see how much they know or remember.

Want to know more about digital storytelling or see more examples? Then take a look at the Web. You can find countless examples and maybe you create your own one!