The act of storytelling, in its multifarious forms, is arguably one of the few if only social and cultural universal among human societies. Storytelling serves some of the most vital functions from the passing on of important survival information, exploring the meanings of our world, or delving into the depths of our social experiences. We all love stories. Whether we read them, watch them, listen to them, or participate in them physically, we love them. With the growing ease of access to digital tools for design, film, recording, art, and text development, our stories are growing more digitally interconnected on a global scale.
Our technological inquiry asks, what is digital storytelling, how can it be used in classrooms, and what critical considerations do we need to take into account?
What is Digital Storytelling?
Digital storytelling, as a specific form of communication, is distinct from other modes of storytelling. Being digital, it is necessarily oriented towards the use of multimedia such as audio/visual features, music, still images, live presentation or recording, and 3D rendering. It is also frequently interactive in ways that other forms of storytelling are not. For example, it may incorporate features of a choose-your-own adventure book, but through soundscapes or visual settings. Of course, none of the features of digital storytelling distinguish it from analog forms of the same thing. A cinema can show a film just as well as a streamer on the internet can. What is distinct is the growing access to tools by a growing pool of people who are able to share their stories globally instantaneously.
For users, digital storytelling tools create a new digital space for expression. In it they can create stories and tell their own in ways that may otherwise be unavailable to them socially, materially, or politically. Access to such tools can be a part of disrupting entrenched understandings of who gets to tell their stories and how when used in conjuncture with social activism and organizing. With this, the global reach of such tools and the universality of telling stories means that digital storytelling can act as a bridge across continents and cultural differences allowing people to share and explore each others stories’ in an increasingly globalizing world.
Research on Digital Storytelling Methods in Classrooms
There has been a good deal of research in the past few years on the integration of digital storytelling tools into the classroom both as a method of lesson delivery and as an interactive activity for students to participate in and tell their own stories with. In both cases, digital storytelling can fit into any subject area, though the way in which it is implemented would necessarily need to change depending on the class one is teaching. Regardless of the subject area, digital storytelling has been shown to give students an outlet for creative expression that may not otherwise be available to them by instructing them not only in methods of expression but in platforms that allow for a global reach and interaction. This has been shown to build confidence in personal expression and self-efficacy amongst students.
The growth in self-efficacy is evident in the ways researchers and teachers see students grow as learners and peer teachers as they become confident with their own expression and the use of digital tools for storytelling. This helps create a greater sense of community and cooperation in the classroom, building a more student-centered environment where the teacher becomes a servant-leader in facilitating learning the tools. The multimodal nature of digital storytelling tools gives multiple entryways into subject areas for students which has been particularly helpful for students who are learning English as another language, or who experience difficulties and challenges communicating.
As Bernard Robin argues, using digital storytelling as a method for exploring content and concepts in ones classroom has demonstrably increased the accessibility of information for students. Because digital storytelling has so many entryways (making a video, interactive presentations, audio performances, game-like presentations, etc…) students are able to slide class competencies or content into something they are already interested in working through, like a new skill on a digital platform or tool. Learning best happens when people are able to construct meaning around the new concept, fact, skill, or other thing, and when we use stories and new tools to tell them, then the meaning making is blended directly into the very act of education, rather than being tacked on at the end or left in the air for students to hopefully grasp. The concepts or competencies we are trying to teach become entangled with the experience of developing their stories with peers, with performance, and with sharing their stories and listening to those of others. On top of their growth in self-efficacy, Robin also shows how digital storytelling has lead to better memory recall and growth in empathy among students who learn through stories.
Critical Considerations
Corinne Gordon has done extensive case study research on secondary teachers implementing digital storytelling into their classrooms in both English and Math subject areas. In her work we see some of the ways that digital storytelling projects can, like any other project, lead to poor outcomes and learning for students if it is not facilitated effectively by the teacher. Gordon shows how during a digital storytelling project on utopian and dystopian literature, a teacher failed to facilitate the guidelines of the assignment which lead to a student decorating their stated “utopia” with Nazi imagery. While we can see this as important in identifying a student that has problematic views (to say the absolute least) it does not help the general goal of the course or the safety of other students in the class.
Student and teacher interaction is still necessary when using digital storytelling tools for projects or expression in class. To take digital storytelling methods as a panacea for teachers is not helpful. Like any tool, it must be mediated by effectively teaching about its use, and teaching about the means of caring, empathetic storytelling. Digital storytelling is a method and offers a repertoire of tools for learning and expression that can make space for creative explorations of content areas, concepts, and competencies, but like any other method, it cannot be used without proper scaffolding. Likewise, the digital tools that are used in this kind of storytelling are not always going to be fully understood by every student, and not every student is going to become proficient or enjoy using them to tell a story. For this reason digital storytelling cannot stand alone. It is useful to accompany this method with other forms of communication such as short written or spoken analyses, descriptions, or other thoughts.
Conclusion and Further Steps
As we have seen, digital storytelling is a powerful tool for developing self expression, compassion and cooperation, empathy, communicative skills through different media, and self-efficacy. Critically however, we must not let digital storytelling stand alone and give students unguided free reign on their work with it. Facilitation on what meaningful and caring storytelling looks like is still necessary.
As the above authors have shown, digital storytelling becomes even more effective as a means of teaching when it is interactive. Students will learn better through stories, either by listening or performing them. But when students are able to co-create a story together it fosters an even greater sense of community and gives yet another entryway to access the content, concepts, or competencies that the lesson is trying to communicate. One way of augmenting digital storytelling is by incorporating gamification. While this could look like creating digital games, we became interested in looking at how it might fit in with in-person tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons.
As Sarah Roman of Teaching With D&D demonstrates, using a digital platform and in class participation to run a D&D game based off Beowulf for her English literature class has not only increased student understanding of the topic at hand, but has generated a more open, communicative, confident, and socially caring classroom environment. Students were given a safer space to explore their performative sides while engaging deeply with the English tasks and learning from one another’s creative expressions.
There are countless platforms and tools to use as a form of digital storytelling. One that we like is Twine. Check out our Twine story here to see some platforms, how they work, and what we think of them! Hopefully it will help you integrate digital storytelling into your classroom in the future!
——————————-
References:
Gordon, C. (2011). Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: Three Case Studies. Retrieved from https://repository.asu.edu/items/14437
What is digital storytelling. (2020). Retrieved from https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/digitalstorytelling/what-is-digital-storytelling/
Wyman, K. (2020). Digital Storytelling: Putting Students’ Passion for Technology to Good Use. Resilient Educator. Retrieved from https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/digital-storytelling/
Robin, B. (2006). The educational uses of digital storytelling. … for Information Technology & Teacher Education …. Retrieved from http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/articles/Educ-Uses-DS.pdf
Robin, B. (2020). About Digital Storytelling. Retrieved from https://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/page.cfm?id=27&cid=27
Roman, S. (2019, February 12). Teaching With DnD. Retrieved from https://www.teachingwithdnd.com/
Roman, S. (2017) Literature with Dungeons and Dragons. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uegiwrB-8_s&ab_channel=ABildungSROMAN