Literature Review: Digital Storytelling

Incorporating Digital Storytelling in Educational Settings

Annotated Bibliography and Literature Review

Claire Burgoyne ETEC 532 - University of British Columbia

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Annotated Bibliography Chung, S. K. (2007). Art education technology: Digital storytelling. Art Education, 60(2), 17-22. (Retrieved from Eric Database, No. EJ766974).

Chungs article outlines the steps employed by graduate students in the creation of digital

stories that explore the potential of teaching visual art and culture through this medium. A list of evaluation criteria highlights the importance of selecting elements that add to the storyline with an emphasis on aesthetics and visual literacy. Chung concludes that digital storytelling provides opportunity for art educators to involve students in problem solving activity that is relevant, personal, and meaningful. This article prompts me to reevaluate my approach to art instruction and consider how I might incorporate digital storytelling thereby encouraging students to create pieces describing their passions and who they are.

Di Blas, N., & Garzotto, F., Paolini, P., Sabiescu, A. (2009). Digital storytelling as a whole-class learning activity: Lessons from a three-years project. In: Proceedings of ICIDS 2009, LNCS 5915, Springer, p. 1425. Retrieved February 28, 2012, from: [PDF] from tec-lab.ch

This study was conducted to explore the prolonged use of collaborative digital storytelling

in educational settings. It highlights the advantages of learning in community and how such learning promotes a deeper understanding than occurs when individuals explore topics independently. The inclusion of a table summarizing the educational benets of whole class digital storytelling provides support for the promotion of digital storytelling at the K-12 level.

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This study begins to answer the call for more research regarding the benets of digital storytelling however, I would like to learn more from the researchers about the design and implementation of the project as well as a detailed analysis of their ndings.

Dreon, O., Kerper, R. M., & Landis, J. (2011). Digital storytelling: A tool for teaching and learning in the YouTube generation. Middle School Journal, 42(5), 4-9. (Retrieved from Eric Database, No. EJ934075).

The authors dene the benets to students of instructional digital stories as being engaging

and accelerating students comprehension. This article is concise and uses familiar examples stressing the importance of story length, music, and humour to create quick clever lessons that communicate with students in a language they are familiar with. I found the comparison of teacher created math videos to YouTube videos helpful. In making this comparison the authors very clearly dene criteria for digital storytelling for instructional purposes.

Robin, B. R. (2008a). Digital storytelling: A powerful technology tool for the 21st century classroom. Theory Into Practice, 47, 220-228. (Retrieved from Eric Database, No. EJ799668).

Robin responds to the claim by researchers that the use of technology in classrooms has

made no signicant positive impact on student achievement. He emphasizes the difference between simply placing computers and software in classrooms and integrating technology with instruction and learning. He highlights the benets to students and their learning through digital

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storytelling. Robin explores Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) and how the TPCK framework developed by Mishra & Koehler (2006), helps teachers to use technology in creative, critical, and purposeful ways. This framework provides some guidance for developing criteria from which to evaluate the digital storytelling projects I propose to students.

Robin, B. (2008b). The educational uses of digital storytelling. Retrieved March 2, 2012, from: http://www.coe.uh.edu/digitalstorytelling

In his article Robin focuses on the benets of digital storytelling in improving multiple

literacy skills. He provides an overview of the seven elements of digital storytelling developed by the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) 2005, which he later connects to discussion regarding 21st Century literacy skills. The article illustrates the contribution of digital storytelling to a constructivist learning environment in which students are creative and engaged while demonstrating critical thinking skills. A primary benet of this article to me as a teacher new to digital storytelling, is in the clarity of the explanations as to how students develop literacy skills while engaged in activity that is personally meaningful.

Sadik, A. (2008). Digital storytelling: A meaningful technology-integrated approach for engaged student learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 56, 487506. (Retrieved from Eric Database, No. EJ798851).

Sadiks study explores digital storytelling as a method for purposeful technology

integration. He emphasizes the importance of courses designed from a constructivist approach

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and outlines the value of such design as facilitating learning in collaboration with peers to employ creativity and critical thinking skills in solving problems. While the study outlines advantages to this approach to learning, challenges students face in working in groups to complete their stories are also revealed. Sadik fails to describe the training teachers require in adopting constructivist approaches and overlooks their challenges in assisting students with the skills they require for success. In addition to preparing to guide students in the creation of their digital stories students need support developing organizational skills, communication skills, and critical thinking skills.

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Introduction ! During the past two years I have sought ways to incorporate constructivist strategies in

the online visual arts courses I teach. It is this goal to create engaging and personally meaningful learning experiences for my students that led me to explore digital storytelling. Stories are a captivating way for teachers to engage students in learning activities and a powerful way for students to express their ideas, issues, and passions. When digital storytelling pioneer Dana Atchley began creating digital stories the process was complex. Now with the introduction of Web 2.0 technology access to open source user friendly options has spurred an increase in the creation of personal digital stories with some of these going viral on the internet.
While many educators access these stories and recognize their contribution to learning it

still remains uncommon for digital storytelling to be incorporated as part of the repertoire of options for instruction and assignment completion. This disconnect between what students appreciate and value outside of school and what they experience in an educational setting encouraged me to survey digital storytelling literature.

Selection of Studies
Selecting scholarly articles about digital storytelling proved to be challenging. This form

of digital communication has not been widely implemented in the classroom and few well designed studies of sufcient duration have been conducted. The majority of the articles (Chung, 2007, Dreon, Kerper, & Landis, 2011; Robin, 2008a; Robin, 2008b), are based on observation of digital storytelling teacher education programs. Two articles (Di Blas, Garzotto, Paolini, &

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Sabiescu, 2009; Sadik, 2008) are research studies. I chose these six articles as they dene the benets of storytelling (Di Blas et al. 2009; Dreon et al. 2011; Robin, 2008a; Robin, 2008b; Sadik, 2008), or serve as guides to aid teachers in implementing digital storytelling in the classroom (Chung, 2007; Dreon, et al. 2011; Robin, 2008a; Robin, 2008b).

Analysis, Synthesis, Critique

Many of the articles outline the steps involved in the creation of digital stories as being:

exploring and dening topics, gathering images, selecting audio, script writing, creating a storyboard, producing, and sharing and critiquing (Chung, 2007; Robin, 2008b; Sadik, 2008). Some credit either the Digital Storytelling Cookbook Lambert (2010), or the Center for Digital Storytelling with dening the elements of digital storytelling as being: point of view, a dramatic question, emotional content, the gift of your voice, the power of the soundtrack, economy, and pacing (Dreon, et al. 2011; Robin, 2008a; Robin, 2008b). Common to these articles is a discussion of the benets of digital storytelling to teaching and learning. Digital stories are used by teachers to enhance lessons and introduce new concepts as they engage students and help them retain new information (Robin, 2008b). When students create digital stories by participating in their creation during all phases they develop skills including; writing and research, communication, organization, presentation, critical thinking, assessment, and technological skills (Di Blas et al. 2009; Robin, 2008b).
Together these articles outline the steps required for creating digital storytelling, they

discuss the benets of digital storytelling, include criteria for evaluation of digital stories (Chung, 2007; Sadik, 2008), and provide guidance for selecting technology tools and meeting the

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challenges working with these tools presents (Robin 2008a; Robin 2008b, Sadik 2008). They discuss challenges including equal access for all students to technology (Dreon et al. 2011) and the need for a better framework (Robin 2008a). What they overlook however is that promoting digital storytelling creation by students relies on a student-centred approach to learning with teachers prepared to employ contructivist principles. Digital storytelling presents challenges to teachers trained to teach using behaviourist or cognitive approaches to learning as these are classrooms where learning is teacher-centred and content-centred. As Dreon et al. (2011) point out future teachers may hold strong positive beliefs about technology and may be procient with a variety of software applications, they may be unable to translate this knowledge to their teaching (p. 5).
In the Sadik (2008) study, a review of the literature includes a comment that it is not

which technology is used, but how the technology is used which is relevant to a constructivist classroom (p. 489). The skills we expect our students to use when creating digital stories are skills they acquire when being taught in a constructivist environment. Students who have not begun to develop critical thinking skills, or who lack experiences with self-directed learning require more assistance than the classroom teacher may be able to provide. In addition, although teachers may be technologically literate and subject experts if they do not have experience using constructivist approaches to teaching they will struggle to succeed when asking students to complete digital stories.
In addition to overlooking the signicance of training for teachers in constructivist

approaches I wonder why comparisons between traditional storytelling and digital storytelling were not made by any of these authors. Di Blas et al. (2009) acknowledges that children begin developing storytelling skills during early childhood for problem solving, task completion, and

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making sense of their world. Sadik (2008) mentions that storytelling is the original form of teaching (p. 489) explaining that story creation is a method that allows students to understand

and organize experiences, however neither expands on the value of traditional stories. Di Blas et al. (2009) do not relate their comments to digital storytelling while Sadik (2008) comments that digital stories allow learners to create their stories rather than remaining listeners of stories as they did with conventional storytelling. In doing so he overlooks his earlier explanation of the value of creating traditional stories. Whether digital or traditional, we all create stories and enjoy sharing our stories. Stories connect us to our communities giving us a sense of belonging and allowing us to share our interests and concerns.

Conclusion
I can think of no better way to stimulate excitement for learning than to share a

captivating story that expresses ones ideas or passions. In modernizing the art of storytelling by using technology to present multimedia stories, educators have the opportunity to enliven their classroom whether face-to-face or online. More students are able to communicate their stories visually and creatively while gaining experience in multiple literacies and skills. These benets of digital storytelling are clear while the requirements for successful implementation are less so. In order for educators to succeed with digital storytelling for instruction and student assignment completion, research focused on guiding educators in successful incorporation of digital storytelling in the classroom would be benecial.