Education has found yet another way in which technology can aid the learning of students. Digital storytelling has transformed the art of storytelling which has been around for ages. It allows for pictures, music, and narration to be added to the story. It can be used in a variety of ways in the field of Education and has several positives. Students will write a multiple different stories throughout their educational careers, and digital storytelling can take those stories to a new level. This is not to say that every time a story is written it has to be done digitally, but occasionally this does add to the excitement for the students. Students will also better their technological skills while creating their story digitally. Digital storytelling can also be a good outlet for shy students who would otherwise be hesitant to express their story to others. This type of storytelling allows for the story to be told without a student ever having to get in front of a large crowd of peers. They are simple to make as well. Its as easy as 3 steps: 1) Creat your story, 2) Find media to go along with it, and 3) Choose the technological source in which you will creat your digital story. Because of the simplicity in this new way of telling stories, teachers could use digital storytelling in a variety of different ways. Some possible ways in which I would use digital storytelling for my own classroom are listed below.
I could picture using digital storytelling in a variety of ways for my future classes. Digital storytelling would be a great group activity for students to get engaged in as well as for teachers to present content to their students. I can picture for a future English class assigning a group digitial storytelling project. Each group is assigned a common book to read and the entire group must produce a book review together to present to the class. A teacher could use digital storytelling to introduce a new concept, explain a complex idea to the class, or to summarize an entire unit before a big test. I think that it could best be used to explain a complex idea. Different students learn in different ways. This is one thing that all teachers must learn. A digital story could be a way that some students learn particular things better than a normal lecture. I also could envision a unit review being a nice way to use digital storytelling. Both the review and the explanation of a complex topic are ways that individual students could use the recorded digital story as needed to learn or review concepts.
Overall, I think that digital storytelling can be a great way to enhance learning for students of all ages. While the elementary level may be the best to use digital storytelling on, I also think that it could be used effectively at the middle and high school levels if used properly. More information about digital storytelling can be found by viewing this short Video Clip.
