Digital Storytelling

Its weird to think how much storytelling has affected my life. My parents have told me stories since I was a baby. Oral stories, myths, fairy tales or just books read aloud, stories were a huge part of my childhood. Storytelling allowed my imagination to run wild, there were stories that gained my interest like Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty , but there were also stories that taught me lessons like my father's self made story of what happens to little girls who do not go to bed (Hint: Santa doesn't come...it was a scary story when I was little).

 Storytelling is why I have become such an avid reader, but storytelling also has had other effects in my life. I realized that stories is how I remember facts. Give me a list of facts about history and I have a hard time remembering them, but connect them with a story then I will remember. Honestly I think this is one of the reasons that storytelling, especially digital storytelling, is going to be really useful in the education field. Stories help students connect to information and they also allow students to engage in their education. Rather than just sitting and listening to a teacher lecture, digital storytelling allows students to use their own voice and compels them to utilize their imagination and creative thinking skills. Digital storytelling allows students to create stories that not only can be presented to their teacher or their classmates, but also posted on the internet and presented to thousands. Suddenly, a student's voice, views and opinions can be shared with others. Now students are not just in the passive role of student, but also educators, as they can educate others through their stories.

In addition, students who are really engaged in something have a tendency to learn more. For example, a special education teacher used digital storytelling in her classroom and saw a vast improvement. The teacher had the students create a digital story utilizing power point and video to tell about their life, focusing on their neighborhood, parents, pets, etc. The teacher stated that before the project students had issues with complete sentences, writing and organizing their thoughts. The story maps that they had to create before filming their project helped them practice their organization skills and in addition, students had to really think about what they were going to say and create a script which helped them practice their writing skills. At the end of the project the teacher claimed the student work had vastly improved and that by sharing their projects with other students they practiced reflection and really worked hard to make edits and polish their work (Banister, Michalski, Hodges, 2005).

Digital storytelling not only allows students to work with technology, but it also allows them to practice writing with the script, visual literacy because students have to decide what images to include, information literacy because the students have to be able to find the information and ethically utilize that information (Boss, 2008). So students are learning multiple skills, while still being engaged in the classroom. Thus, I believe that digital storytelling can be a really effective resource for students. Not only will it help them in education, but these skills will help them in other aspects of their life. I can see students using digital storytelling for everything from a classroom assignment on the Revolutionary War to a student's campaign for class president.

Banister, S., Hodges, D., & Michalski, P. (2005). Digital storytelling in the middle childhood special education classroom: A teacher ’ s story of adaptations. TEACHING Exceptional Children Plus, 1(4), Retrieved from http://www.bgsu.edu/downloads/edhd/file78632.pdf

 Boss, S. (2008, March 4). Digital storytelling: Helping students find their voice. Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/digital-storytelling-helping-students-find-their-voice