Digital Storytelling in the Classroom

The Department of Education reported to Congress in 2007 that technology just was not working in

the classroom. Student grades were not improving, but staying as stagnate as they ever were. Based

on this article, it seemed as though all that tax money and time that was put into putting technology in

Taken from timemanagementninja.com

the classroom was a waste of time. However, it has also been reported that the study and newspaper article did not study all factors of integrating technology into the classroom. There is still a lot of potential, but teachers need training on how to use technology most effectively. If a teacher does not understand the use of an app or website, then there is no way for him or her to understand how to implement it, and so on.

My source for this technology information is a peer-reviewed article by Bernard R. Robin, "Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century Classroom" which has a lot of information on the importance and potential of technology in the classroom. According to this article, technology is no longer about a one to many communication - it’s a many to many communication platform. We have seen this in my previous blog post about the advantage of wikis. This is important because it revolutionizes the classroom set up - normally the teacher lectures and the students discuss but now it would be possible for students to learn via these platforms in a social atmosphere on the internet.

Digital Storytelling, however, is a technology platform that allows teachers to hook students into a lecture and still encourages student engagement. It is an interesting way to present information to our students. Most digital stories include music, pictures, or videos, in any combination. There are endless possibilities to what your particular digital story could look like to fit into a classroom lesson plan. These digital stories can be used for personal narratives, informational stories, analyses of historical events or biographies, or many other educational purposes. Digital stories are apparently important to incorporate in the classroom because it encourages 21st century literacy or digital age literacy. 

This is an image taken directly from the source.

There are a lot of interesting ways to use digital storytelling in the classroom as I have mentioned above. The access to technology is becoming less of a problem for schools now because technology is becoming more and more available to the average teacher or student. There is a website by the University of Houston that outlines several creative uses of digital stories that teachers should use for inspiration. 

Ultimately, technology and specifically digital storytelling has a lot of benefits for the students if teachers are willing to learn how to use technology efficiently and provide access to the technology for their students.