An Annotated Bibliography of Digital Storytelling 3.12

 

A topic that I am planning to research is the use of digital storytelling within the educational environment.  Nixon (2013) explains that digital story telling “blends image, sound, print, and other communication media in a dynamic real-time environment.” (Center for Digital Storytelling, 2011;Lambert, 2010;Lunby, 2009) (p. 123) Because of the nature of this literacy practice it provides students the opportunity to not have to rely only on print literacy to tell his or her story. Rather students can use other semiotic resources that create meaning in the story being told. Nixon (2013) writes “digital storytelling has the potential to provide youth with opportunities for new sense-making of who they are using digital stories that incorporate images, text, and sound. (p. 124) I find this to be an innovative way in which to engage students into telling their stories as well as other stories. Digital storytelling is like the more traditional ways we are used to telling stories. They have a topic and contain a point of view, but as mentioned already, utilize more multimodalities then paper and publishing technologies. Digital stories are not lengthy, ranging in time form 2-10 minutes.

The topic of digital storytelling is of interest to me because it is not something that I was familiar with as an educator, so I would like to find out more information about it so that I can use it with the teachers at my school or my own classroom. It provides an alternative way for students to share stories. The stories can range from true, historical, non-fiction or even made up. In addition, it can be used with a wide range of ages, and it offers students options to include multimodal elements.

Dreon, O., Kerper, R. and Landis, J. Middle School Journal. Digital storytelling: A tool for teaching and learning in the YouTube generation. (2011). Vol. 42. No. 5. pp. 4-10. Association for Middle Level Education. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23047749.

In this article the authors focus on preservice teachers, who are themselves 21^st century learners or “natives” who are now teaching 21^st century learners within their own classrooms. Dreon et. al (2011) make a point that just because teachers are familiar with using technology, does not necessarily mean it can be used effectively within the classroom. The article focuses on one preservice teacher who uses digital storytelling via YouTube to provide instructional support for his middle school math students.  It is mentioned in the article a few times that if we can draw on students’ interest, they are more likely to engage in learning the content being taught. Digital storytelling can be a medium in which to draw on students’ interest. The authors explain (2011) “Although Tyler’s videos focus on teaching important math concepts, the stories are what ultimately engage his students.”( p. 5) The preservice teachers took a class that focused on digital storytelling and participated in using this medium within their class.  Digital storytelling resembles what students are used to seeing when they are using technology to search and get information. The connection to YouTube demonstrates how digital storytelling is a part of youth culture allowing people to upload short videos and search for information. While this medium can be useful, teachers need to be mindful of student’s ability to access such content.

Hur, J. and Suh, S. (2012). Computers in Schools. Volume 29, p. 320-328. Making learning active with interactive whiteboards, podcasts, and digital storytelling in ELL classrooms.

According to the article by Hur and Suh (2012) the ELL population within schools is increasing. Compared to non-ELL students, ELL students perform lower on achievement assessments. One reason for this according to the article, is the lack of English vocabulary. (Hur and Suh, 2012, p. 321) The article explains a case study done with 3^rd and 4^th grade ELL classrooms and the use of interactive whiteboards, digital storytelling, and the use of podcasts to improve learning with ELL students. According to the article interactive whiteboards including Smartboard and Promethean Boards provide ways in which images, videos and supporting text can be easily shared with students. In addition, students can interact with the images and the board itself.  Digital storytelling provides students practice with oral language as they narrate stories and use other multimedia to make meaning of content being learned. The other media used was podcasts which allow students to hear fluently spoken native language or adjust the speed at which stories are listened as well as the portability of podcasts on phones or tablets.

Eleven students participated in the study during a summer program. The teacher in the study was already consistently using technology in her practice. The results of the study produced positive outcomes for ELL learners and as a result the authors suggest the integration of technology within the classroom.(Hur and Suh, 2012) Students’ vocabulary increased according to pre and post test data. Students liked the interactive whiteboard because they were able to play games as a class which most said helped them learn content. The teacher in the study felt that the interactive whiteboard was useful in showing students images needed to help further explain vocabulary that was new or to help students explain ideas. (p.330)  Also noted by the teacher was the efficiency of using the whiteboard to quickly search for images, thus not losing instructional time with students. (p. 331) According to the students in the study, digital storytelling was helpful to them.  The stories lasted between 2 to 5 minutes and incorporated images and text. Students used Power Point and then an app called Photostory to create presentations. This experience resulted in an improvement in speaking proficiency based on the WIDA levels of students. Parents of students also liked the digital storytelling experience because they were able to watch it numerous times and even share it with other family members. The last technology investigated was the use of podcasts.  Not many students found this useful, but parents liked it because it was the teacher’s voice, and they were able to know what was happening within the classroom. (p. 334)

Lisenbee, P. and Ford, C. (2018, online 2017). Early Childhood Education J Volume 46 pp. 129-139. Engaging students in traditional and digital storytelling to make connections between pedagogy and children’s experiences.

This article focuses on the use of both traditional and digital storytelling within the early elementary classroom. The author’s clarify traditional story telling as the children using actions, using props such as puppets, or matching words from a story to describe an experience from their lives. (2018, p. 129) Digital storytelling incorporates technology such as cell phones, interactive white boards, computers, or tablets. (p.129) Students use the concept of traditional storytelling, but use more multimedia such as images, sound, or video and can be uploaded and saved digitally. Each of these methods is aligned to Common Core Standards. Lisenbee and Ford explain that the use of both traditional and digital storytelling provides students with 21^st century learning skills. The authors write about how each form of storytelling was used in the classroom, both methods provide students with storytelling as social process of interacting with literacy and using a variety of higher order thinking skills, such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration. In the example of traditional story telling the teacher reads the Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle. Students retell the story by acting out what happens at each part of the story as it happens. In the author’s recount of digital storytelling, pairs of students are chosen to retell the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears using the SMART board. Students can access clip art and images via The Smart Notebook software (p. 135). While students were able to engage in this task, they struggled with clicking on the correct story to use for the retelling of the story. 

Both traditional and digital storytelling engage students in literacy learning and the social practice that is part of literacy.

This link was taken from Table 3: Resources for teachers; print books, digital books, storytelling websites in the article by Lisenbee and Ford. (p.137)

https://www.storytelling.org/web-resources/

 

Lotherington, H. and Chow, S. (2006). The Reading Teacher Volume 60, Issue 3. Rewriting “Goldilocks” in the urban multicultural elementary school. International Literacy Association.

Working with a school in the Toronto, Canada area with a high number of students who are learning English Lotherington and Chow (2006) write about how they worked with a kindergarten class to retell the classic story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears using digital technology to provide students a way to tell the story from their own culturally perspective and to teach narrative development in early grades. Lotherington explains that as her role as a guest reader in this class, students often chose the Goldilocks story as one for her to read to them. She writes (2006) “ I wanted to work with the teachers and the children to co-create a process of inviting the incipient reader into the narrative-that is, to engage readers as writers with the agency to rework a well-known story.” (p. 244) Lotherington conducted an action research study that was qualitative in nature. It involved the teachers at Joyce Public Schools.

She shares the story of one teacher Sandra Chow who co-wrote this article and is a 2^nd grade teacher. The teacher exposed her class to more classic versions of this fairytale and had the children work on retelling to determine students understanding of the narrative story elements.   Then students were exposed to other versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Then it became the students turn to change some of the story elements (ie: characters, setting, or the ending) to create their own version. The teacher provided students with instructions to rewrite his or her version. To do this students used technology and other modalities to create their stories such as Wigglworks, a puppet show, and visual arts, digital photography, and Hyperstudio. (p. 246) In students’ versions of the story the authors (2006) explain that students used versions of themselves with black skin and braids, or even characters like mermaids, sharks, space explorer and more.

According to Lotherington and Chow the project was successful. Teachers were able to incorporate multiliteracies in innovative ways in which students were able to practice comprehension skills and demonstrate agency in telling his or her own version of this story.

Student work images of their retellings:                                                              

(p. 248)                   

   

(p. 249)

(p. 249)

McLellan, H. (2006)Journal of Computing in Higher Education, Vol 19(1), 65-79. Digital storytelling in higher education.

This article explores the emergence of digital storytelling. McLellan (2006) writes that digital storytelling serves “as a valuable tool in subject areas-history, language arts, social studies , teacher training, etc.” (p 68) McLellan (2006) explains the many benefits of digital storytelling such as visual literacy, collaboration, and mastery of technology. Digital storytelling encompasses one’s individual way to tell a story using various media resources. According to the article most digital storytelling is utilized in educational settings or community or civic environments. The power in digital storytelling is how it can be created, saved for future use, and even shared with others. The article explains five different applications used in digital storytelling; personal stories, digital archives, memorial stories, avocational stories, and medicine and health. Personal stories are just as they seem. Telling stories of ourselves and families. The author equates personal stories to photographs of a family photo album but making it digital and telling the stories behind the pictures. One way in which people share stories is through blogs. In this way people are sharing personal stories with others both near and far. Another application for digital storytelling is digital story archives.  These are explained as websites in which people share personal stories, blogs are included in this application as well. Topics include birth, death, food, and romance to name a few examples. (McLellan, 2006, p. 74) Memorial stories are yet another application for digital story telling. These consist of ways in which to remember the stories of groups of people. Some examples from the article are those being effected by September 11^th, those involved in Vietnam, or groups who need to tell their own narratives, such as The Japanese American Legacy Project or American Slaves narratives. (p. 75) The last two application described for digital storytelling are avocational stories and those in medicine and health. Avocational stories tell about those with significant life issues while medicine and health tell the stories of those afflicted with health issues where others can find information or simply connect with others going through similar experiences. The author even mentions the idea of Youtube and MySpace as tools to create digital stories.

References

University of Houston Education. (2023).https://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/page.cfm?id=27&cid=27&sublinkid=29

Digital Storytelling 1.2: Tools for Digital Storytelling. (2021)https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&ei=UTF-8&p=center+for+digital+storytelling&type