VII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2015

Introduction

The concept of storytelling is older than human history itself. Before the invention of written language, wisdom, knowledge, and information were passed down orally, and often through what would today be considered stories. In one sense, storytelling has always utilized the latest available technology.

The rapid technological advances of the early 21st century have opened up new doors for the age-old practice of storytelling. While traditional storytelling is still alive and well, the practice of digital storytelling, a broad concept that encompasses the idea of using digital technology and multimedia interaction to share stories, is emerging as a useful tool for librarians and educators. We’ll look at how digital storytelling has emerged from the timeless practice of traditional storytelling. We’ll explore how digital storytelling has been used in different contexts to aid educators. We’ll also describe the technological tools that can be used to tell a digital story.

Jacobsen believe that many teachers worldwide are not able to adopt technology for teaching and learning tasks, and the gap between technology presence in schools and its effective use is too wide [1,10-14].

Kang et al. [2], Shin and Park [3,417] define "digital storytelling" as storytelling that is conducted using digital technology as the medium or method of expression, in particular using digital media in a computer-network environment. Digital storytelling encompasses these key characteristics: Flexibility, universality, interactivity and community formation [4, 25-28]. Flexibility in digital storytelling refers to the creation of a non-linear story using digital media technology by Gregori-Signes [5,43]. Universality means that anyone can become the producer of digital stories, due to the wide availability of computers and easy-to-use software. Interactivity refers to the participation of users in the development of the stories using media characteristics that can be mutually exchanged.

The aim of investigation is to give the reasons why the integration of technology into the education system is needed. Moreover our aim is to provide a clearer picture and a better understanding of the impact on student learning when teachers and EFL students take advantage of digital storytelling using different software platforms.

Subject: new pedagogical technologies.

Object: digital storytelling.

Objectives: The main intention of this study, then, is to help teachers develop the nature of teaching and learning through a particular application of digital technologies that may result in a shift in technology utilization. By providing a clear picture of what and how teachers and students use digital storytelling, much can be learned to facilitate meaningful integration of the technology into Kazakh schools.

Theoretical significance: the final outcome of our investigation can be developed in scientific and diploma work. And they can be used as a source of preparing lectures for Methodology of teaching English language.

Practical significance: Firstly, all the results of investigation could be used in teaching English language in schools for teenage students. Secondly to help English teachers use special software platforms for digital storytelling.

Methods of investigation: According to Stake [6], examining teachers' changes in skills and behaviors, as well as their perceptions of an innovation to learning, requires a methodology that allows for individual thought and expression to be recorded and analyzed. Therefore multiple methods of data collection and analysis were employed to enhance the validity and reliability of the study, such as descriptive method and contrastive method.

Actuality: It has been invested that the teachers, in general, struggle to incorporate computer applications into regular classroom instructional practices to enhance learning due to the ineffective and inappropriate training and lack of vision of technology's potential for improving learning. Teachers have not introduced before to meaningful technology-based approaches that would give some sort of challenge and purpose to the activities that often happens in authentic situations.

In addition, no previous study has examined the potential of digital storytelling in encouraging Kazakh teachers to integrate technology into the curriculum and engage students in technology-rich, active and cooperative learning situations that help them to construct their own learning.

1. Innovative pedagogical technologies

1.1 Meaningful technology integration

Paul and Fiebich [6] argue that digital stories can be presented in a variety of formats such as text web pages, a nonlinear interactive website, a digital song, a digital video, an online game, or a virtual reality world by Shin & Park [7,417]. In particular, virtual reality learning environments have the potential to provide rich and engaging learning experiences for students that include investigation, discovery, and creation, Dickey; Park & Baek; Robin [8,9,10].

According to Robin [11, 643], writing is an essential part of the process of creating digital stories. Various research studies have verified the effectiveness of digital storytelling in improving students' writing skills and creativity.

Meaningful technology integration is defined as curricula utilizing authentic tasks that intentionally and actively help learners to construct their own meanings from thinking about experiences and allows for more interdisciplinary project-based instruction, Jonassen, D., Peck, K., & Wilson [13]. Integration is defined not by the amount or type of technology used, but by how and why it is used Earle, R. S. [14, 5].

Meaningful integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information and present it professionally, Allen, D., & Tanner, K. [15,197]. However, harnessing the power of the integration of technology requires not only a new or advanced technology, but also a systematic way of utilizing the technology to improve student learning by Hoffman, B. [16, 51].

Research indicates that in order to achieve meaningful technology integration, learning must be designed from a constructivist approach that encourages students to learn in a social context and help them to develop an ability to readily create new knowledge, solve new problems and employ creativity and critical thinking [17,15] indicated that constructivists view students as constructive agents and view knowledge as built instead of being passively received by students, whose ways of knowing and understanding influence what is known and understood.

In addition, the interaction between students, the flow of ideas and thinking aloud encourage students to foster active learning, in which users discover and address gaps in their understanding when explaining concepts to others.

Constructivist strategies include collaborative and cooperative learning methods, engaging in critical and reflective thinking and evaluation through electronic portfolios by Nanjappa and Grant [19]. Jonassen and Carr [20,165] believe that in order to help students to construct their knowledge, they should be actively involved in learning with the help of ICT tools. In addition, Wheatley [21,9] argued that because a student will construct his/her own meaning based on his/her interpretation, technology can become a vital educational tool depending on the way it is used in learning.

For example, the initial computer's role in education has been largely viewed through Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI), which is generally used for low-end tasks or providing a richer and more exciting learning environment, such as drill and practice by Duffy and Cunningham [22,170]. However, teachers can use computers, as tools for accessing information, interpreting and organizing their personal knowledge and producing and representing what they know to others, so as to engage students more, resulting in more meaningful and transferable knowledge.

Lim and Tay [23,425] classified ICT tools used in the classroom to improve student learning into four types:

1. informative tools;

2. situating tools;

3. communicative tools;

4. constructive tools.

Informative tools are applications that store and provide vast amounts of information in various formats (e.g., databases, encyclopedias and web resources).

Situating tools are systems that situate students in an environment where they may experience the context (e.g., simulations and games). Communicative tools are systems that facilitate communication between the student and others (e.g., e-mail and discussion boards).

Constructive tools are general-purpose ICT tools that can be used for manipulating information, constructing student's own knowledge or to produce a certain tangible product for a given instructional purpose. PowerPoint and Word, for example, are found to be the most frequently used constructive tools by students for their presentations and special curriculum-based projects Lim and Tay [23,428]. Multimedia authoring and presenting tools, in particular, like PowerPoint, Illustrator, MultiMedia Builder, HyperStudio, MovieMaker and iMovies have proved to be good constructive tools to learn through production, collaboration and project management.

1.2 Storytelling is the original form of teaching

Storytelling is the original form of teaching, Pedersen [24,33]. It is a simple but powerful method to help students to make sense of the complex and unordered world of experience by crafting story lines, Bruner [25].

Within the last 10 years, digital cameras, editing software, authoring tools and electronic media outlets have encouraged teachers to utilize many more approaches and tools than ever before to help students to construct their own knowledge and ideas to present and share them more effectively, Standley [26]. One of these powerful approaches to multimedia production is digital storytelling.

Meadows [27,189] believes that digital storytelling is the social practice of telling stories that makes use of low-cost digital cameras, non-linear authoring tools and computers to create short multimedia stories. The Digital Storytelling Association (2002) describes Digital storytelling as a modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Throughout history, storytelling has been used to share knowledge, wisdom, and values. Stories have taken many different forms. Stories have been adapted to each successive medium that has emerged, from the circle of the campfire to the silver screen, and now the computer screen.

Lynch and Fleming [28,7] indicate that flexible and dynamic nature of digital storytelling, which encapsulates aural, visual and sensory elements, utilizes the multitude of cognitive processes that underpin learning-from verbal linguistic to spatial, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalist and bodily-kinesthetic.

Barrett [29,647] found that digital storytelling facilitates the convergence of four student- centered learning strategies: student engagement, reflection for deep learning, project- based learning, and the effective integration of technology into instruction.

Robin [30] argued that educators at all levels and in most subjects can use digital storytelling in many ways to support students' learning by encouraging them to organize and express their ideas and knowledge in an individual and meaningful way.

Jonassen and Hernandez-Serrano [31, 65] suggested three ways to support learning using stories. First, they can be used as exemplars of concepts or principles being taught by direct instruction. Second, they can be used as problem cases to be solved by students. Third, stories can be used as advice for students, for helping them learn to solve problems.

Gils [33,17] suggested many advantages of using digital storytelling in education:

1. to provide more variation than traditional methods in current practice;

2. to personalize learning experience;

3. to make explanation or the practicing of certain topics more compelling;

4. to create real life situations in an easy and cheaper way;

5. to improve the involvement of students in the process of learning.

Integrating digital storytelling into the language curriculum is a creative language learning technique that can improve student's level of learning in reading, writing, speaking and listening.

While digital storytelling is most often associated with the arts and humanities, research indicates that it can also be an effective strategy for learning in mathematics and science. Harris [33] for example, used digital storytelling to teach students algorithms and problem solving through several stages of learning in order to help them develop mathematical skills. He argued that digital stories, with other materials like worksheets, not only present mathematical skills that students need to learn but also situate the mathematics in a context that is interesting, engaging and relevant.

1.3 Digital storytelling

Characteristics and elements of digital storytelling

Although the spread of new technologies is at its height in schools now, digital storytelling already existed in the 1990s when the Center for Digital Storytelling started to offer workshops for those who were interested in telling their own stories. Digital storytelling owes its structure and elements to traditional storytelling; although it has considerably enriched its format, presentation and distribution modes with the inclusion of the newest multimedia technology, which obviously has enlarged its pragmatic dimension. Can we talk about a new genre? As Duffy [22] explains, there are many genres embedded in digital storytelling: the video game, interactive cinema, virtual reality, web-based narratives, interactive TV, and a number of totally new genres of writing. On the one hand, they all share characteristics that are unique to the genre itself such as the medium of publication as well as the multimedia elements used in building the stories. On the other, however, digital storytelling can also be considered as fitting the profile of a subgenre that lies somewhere between a TV documentary, a report or personal videos and the more traditional modes of oral and written narratives.

In turn, Duffy [22] talks about some basic characteristics of digital storytelling and how they may affect the relationship between the audience, the story and the medium itself. Digital storytelling Duffy [22] argues, a) breaks the Fourth Wall, i.e., characters may speak directly to audience members, relating to them like old friends; or audience members may actually enter the story, interact with its fictional characters, and play a pivotal role in the drama; b) it blurs the distinction between fiction and reality by introducing contemporary communication devices to further the plot line or reveal character- things like phone calls, faxes, emails, and authentic looking websites; c) it vastly expands the story universe by using a number of different media, all tied together to serve the core story; and d) it offers deeply immersed experiences: seeing and hearing vs. seeing, hearing, touching or even smelling. Apart from all those, Duffy [22] adds that e) characters are provided with artifical intelligence, a fact that makes them almost believable; f) digital stories contribute to make make-believe real by using for example the Alternative Reality Game (e.g. Rachel's Room, Push Nevada); and g) they include the possibility of using the "distributed" narrative technique which scatters the story across different web-pages; h) they create immersive worlds using different techniques (e.g. using smell necklaces), and i) they make us rethink our relationship with the screen .

The Center for Digital Storytelling has identified 7 elements that should be present in all digital stories, the three first for oral narratives of personal experience: point of view, a dramatic question, emotional content, the gist of your voice, the power of soundtrack, economy, and pacing. Apart form those elements, that are shared by all digital stories: a) The combination of different media used to create them, b) the type of action (content and user), c) the open or closed relationship between the user and the digital story, d) the limitless context through linking to related, relevant information and, e) the presence of multimodal communication.

In sum, in view of the above, it is clear that digital storytelling is the result of a good combination between more traditional techniques of telling stories and the most innovative multimedia resources. The most radical difference between them, nevertheless is interactivity and the digital medium which certainly makes of digital storytelling a unique genre. Whether it is a genre or a subgenre is not, however, a matter of interest here. What is worth considering is that digital storytelling has opened news ways of working both with discourse and with new technologies which no doubt can generate all sorts of activities that can be useful, attractive and motivating for students.

Types of digital narratives

The term digital narrative/storytelling can itself be applied to a wide range of genres (interactive vs. non interactive narrative) and can be of many different types as illustrated by table 1 below

Narrative	Information/Expository	Persuasive	Environment(s)
Personal Expression Myths/folk talkes Short story	Summary Reports Book reports How-to directions Biographies	Advertisements Describe/conclude Analyze/conclude Analyze/persuade Compare/contrast Cause/effect	Participatory Environment

Table 1. Types of digital narratives

It differentiates between three main groups of narrative: a) Personal Narratives which are one of the most popular genres ii) Digital Stories that Examine Historical Events; b) Stories that inform or instruct In what follows we will refer to these categories in order to propose digital storytelling as an effective tool for EFL instruction.

2. Practical application of digital storytelling

2.1 Digital Storytelling: Convergence

The University of Houston (2009) Instructional Technology Department conducts studies examining the educational uses of digital storytelling. They suggest the following procedures for digital storytelling: In the first stage, the storyteller defines the parameters of the story. The learner should select a topic for the digital story. Next, he should search for image resources for the story (pictures, drawings, photographs, maps, and/or charts), audio resources (music, speeches, interviews, and/or sound effects), and informational content (perhaps from web sites, word processed documents, or PowerPoint slides).When the student has gathered all of his resources, he should begin thinking about the purpose of the story. Is the purpose to inform, convince, provoke, or question?

In the second stage, the storyteller organizes and selects specific audio, images, text, and other content for the story. He should import the images and audio into Photo Story. In this stage, the storyteller can modify the number of images and image order, if necessary.

In the third stage, the storyteller creates, records, and finalizes the story. He should decide on the purpose and point of view of the story and write a script that will be used as narration. He can record the narration with a computer microphone and import the narration into Photo Story. Finally, the digital story is finalized by saving it as a Windows Media Video (.wmv) file.

In the fourth stage, the storyteller presents the story and receives feedback. He can show the story to his colleagues and gather feedback about how the story could be improved, expanded, and used in the classroom. If well received, he can teach colleagues how to create their own digital story.

When digital storytelling is integrated with content areas and across the curriculum, it can be a way of expressing students' ideas and thoughts. Learning strategies can be facilitated through digital storytelling activities. All of the four strategies are attracting a great deal of attention from educators and teachers nowadays.

Figure 1. Convergence of student-centered learning strategies (Barrett, 2006)

If Digital Storytelling is to become accepted in today's Kazakh schools, it will be important to collect data to be able to draw conclusions about the impact that the process has on student learning, motivation and engagement and how teaching practices and strategies change with technology integration through digital storytelling.

2.2. Digital storytelling and the curriculum

The general feeling that one gets, however, is that digital storytelling is being welcomed by many educators, overall in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, but in Kazakhstan it’s not well spread. Conferences entirely dedicated to the subject are taking place, lots of different associations, groups, workshops all over the world are being proposed worldwide, all of them easily accessible through the WWW. So, all in all, they coincide in that digital storytelling is a satisfactory activity that succeeds in motivating students and promoting learning through self-reflection.

Its uses and applications are many, as can be guessed from the many different types mentioned above. We will mention only some of the possible applications and uses of digital storytelling and provide a brief illustration of why digital stories are a good asset that should become part of the curriculum. Where possible I will indicate a type of activity related with skill development for EFL.

There are main dimensions in which stories can add to learning in the whole school curriculum:

• Stories can be used to reinforce conceptual development in children (for example, color, size, shape, time, cause and effect, and so on).

• Reinforcing thinking strategies (for example, comparing, classifying, predicting, problem-solving, hypothesizing, planning, and so on).

• Developing strategies for learning English (for example, guessing the meaning of new words, training the memory, self-testing, and so on).

• Developing study skills (for example, making, understanding and interpreting charts and graphs, making and learning to use dictionaries, organizing work, and so on).

2.3 Examples of using different software platforms

Collecting Images and Creating a Storyboard

A storyboard is a graphic organizer in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at Walt Disney Productions during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios.

Images are an integral part of the Digital Storytelling process and our students spend time finding and scanning images in books, magazines and newspapers and downloading images they find on the web. They also spend a good deal of time learning to increase their skills using a digital camera and then using an image editing software program such as Adobe Photoshop Elements to improve the quality of the images they want to include in their story. Students are also required to develop a storyboard, which provides a rough visual sketch of the proposed story. Storyboards may be simple or complex, but either way, they can help students organize their ideas and plans for how images, text, and audio will be used in the creation of the story, and they can also inspire new ideas as the student begins to see any gaps in the story that need to be filled. Storyboards can be drawn on paper or constructed on the computer using specialized storyboard software or just a word processing program.

An example of a storyboard created by a student for her story on how African Americans were portrayed in early Hollywood films appears below.

 

Figure 2: An Example of a Storyboard on African American Stereotypes in Hollywood

One of the most neglected areas in the development of digital stories involves the quality of the audio that is used. In our classes, we emphasize to our students how important it is for the audio in their digital stories to be of high quality. In our class meetings that deal with audio, we cover the use of different types of microphones, digital voice recorders and older analog audio recording devices such as cassette tape recorders. Students are required to learn to use digital audio production and editing software to record their narration and interview clips and edit them so that they fit in their digital story. Additionally, some student were interested in learning more sophisticated features of audio editing software so they could mix multiple audio tracks that combined their own narration, the interview and more than one piece of music. Digital audio editing programs we use are shown in Table 2.

Audacity	http ://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Goldwave	http://www.goldwave.com/
Adobe Audition	http ://www.adobe.com/products/audition/
Adobe Premiere Elements	http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereel/
Adobe Soundbooth (beta)	http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/soundbooth/

Table 2: Software Programs Used for Editing Digital Audio

Storyboardthat.com

The storyboardthat.com is the digital platform, the storyboard creator uses a familiar drag and drop interface that users of all ages pick up in seconds. This digital platform allows you to fully customize numerous aspects of your storyboard; from coloring in characters, to adding text.

Students worked through an eight-step digital storytelling process model to create first-person narrated three- to-six minute stories. Each step has a distinct focus.

1. Brainstorm story ideas.

2. Develop a script using a storyboard (some storytellers interchanged steps 2 & 3).

3. Select and scan still and moving images to provide visual impact.

4. Record the story.

5. Load the story (narrative) and images into a software program.

6. Add a music track to add emotional tone.

7. Refine and edit the story.

8. Present it to an audience.

Using a six-stage research process involving reflective conversations and storytelling strategies.

Stage 1. Teacher introduces participants the research process and orientates them to digital storytelling processes and technologies.

Stage 2. Reflective conversations facilitates by the teacher supported participants to identify their storylines and themes, mock up storyboards, develop draft narratives and select images and music tracks.

Stage 3. Presentations of draft storyboards to peers for feedback enabled participants to consolidate their storylines, themes, narratives, images and music tracks.

Stage 4. Creation of draft digital stories using digital storytelling software provides participants with opportunities to share their knowledge, skills and experiences and to learn from one another.

Stage 5. Presentations of digital stories to peers and engaging in self and peer review processes enabled participants to make final adjustments.

Stage 6. Teacher encourages participants to reflect on their vocational and literacy learning experience and to identify significant moments and consider assessment possibilities.

Figure 3Figure 4

It’s noticeable that a typical storyboard resembles a table, four rows across, five deep, with ample room for images and minimal space for text, a strategy that encourages storytellers to select memorable phrases to augment their visual and sound tracks.

IMAGE	IMAGE	IMAGE	IMAGE
TEXT	TEXT	TEXT	TEXT

Table 3: Example of storyboard row

English teachers could organize a discussion after presentation and students ask each other reflective questions. For example:

What relationship do I want to convey between this image and my theme?

What message does this image send?

What form of narrative tension would suit this image?

The Storybird.com

Storybird is an extremely engaging collaborative storywriting website that embodies three ideas - creating, reading, and sharing. It is also a collaborative storytelling tool that allows students to focus more on the content of their writing rather than drawing pictures. Students are provided with the pictures - free collections of art. They just have to add the words to write stories. Once the art is chosen, students are able to build their story by dragging and dropping pictures and creating/writing a story to match the pictures chosen. Stories can enclose a variety of genders - poetry, mysteries, tales, among others.

For teachers it is very easy to use because Storybird requires minimal teacher preparation and allows them to easily create individual user accounts for students. With that, teachers can view all story books that students are making. Storybird also has online safety for young students built into it. Storybird can be used collaboratively with, either with another student in class or school, or with students from different schools in the region or even from another country.

Storybird can also be used as a way to collaborate between parent and child. For example, several experiments were made in the USA in order to bridge home and school by having a child and their parents writing pages in a book. Afterwards schools have a book share day where parents come to school and read the story with their children to the rest of the class.

Storybird is also excellent for many writing assignments (feature built in the platform) helping even the most hesitant writers to bring out of their shell as this can be considered an engaging activity.

Many function- similar collaborative storytelling platforms have emerged. In addition to, the common characteristics of collage, collaboration and sharing, they all have their unique features. For instance, in the SPORE creator (http://www.mashon.com/spore/creator/), one is able to create his own comic book. The storynory (http://storynory.com/) is mainly audio story creations which provides various languages and is also available in iTune, iPhone and podcast. Moreover, mixbook.com (http://www.mixbook.com/), although it is mainly about photo book creating, has similar form as collaborative storytelling platform for its combination of visual images, written text, and collaborative idea. Among all these choices, here we prefer the storybird (http://storybird.com/) as the major platform to demonstrate the idea of collaborative storytelling because the images in the website are neutral, which will delight both girls and boys, and with clear direction, it is very easy to use. Furthermore, the storybird has provided many artwork resources with several limited way to use them, instead of giving user total freedom. In this way, you will have to follow the specific procedures it provides to create a story. In other words, it will be much easy for teachers to control. Hence, we think using storybird.com can help demonstrate more clearly.

Storybird.com provides a very user-friendly way of combining images and text to tell a story, and then share that story with other people. What you have to do is to click the bottom "Start a Storybird Now". There are basically two ways to create a story. One is to get inspired directly by art. By browsing "story art" from the growing list of artists, you can start a story while choosing a picture style one likes. Just click the picture and you can see all artworks of the artists and with a click on "Start a Storybird" on the top, you will see a white canvas and three-step directions clearly.

Figure 5

Three-step directions to start a story: first step is to type texts on the white canvas; second step is to find the picture that speaks your words most perfectly, drag the picture in the white canvas and then choose the perfect position to place. You can add or remove pages freely; third step is to save and share your story. The other way to create a story is by the key words of the theme you decided. Choosing tags which matches your story theme and then you can find different picture styles of the same key word. By the click on your favorite picture and following the three-step direction, the storytelling time is coming. After finishing the story, don't forget to create the cover.

Figure 6 The cover creation

Give the story a title or even a small summary and write down your name as author, and then there is a picture book of your own. If you have the account of storybird.com, you can even publish the story and share with others.

Here follows roughly some steps how the platform can be implemented in EFL.

Step 1. Since most students are beginners at this period, the teacher can create a story first and customize the content to match up to students' English level such as alphabets and simple vocabularies. Thus, the learning won't be stressful and students can be familiar with the manipulation of the storybird.com.

Step 2. After students know alphabets and some vocabularies, the teacher can give them a word they have read before and ask them to find the related pictures. This activity can be held as group competition which is actually more like a test in order to know whether students really understand or not.

Step 3. The teacher can lead students to read other published online stories. In this way, students will know English structure about how words construct a sentence. The teacher can take the opportunity to teach simple grammars and at the same time cultivating students' English sense.

Step 4. With the accumulation of English knowledge, students can try to write sentences. So the teacher can start a story and then let students finish it. This can be a group work. The work will be shared online. As homework, students have to browse other groups' work and give their personal comments.

Step 5. In the end of the semester, the teacher can make each group create their own story or even perform their stories on stage to substitute for the final examination. Still, these are not the only ways to use the platform. In general, with the teacher's creativity, the designs of the collaborative storytelling platforms will make teaching methods more flexible and diverse.

Taking the storybird as an example, collaborative storytelling platform is able to provide multiple ways for teaching to receive different effects, and thus with its flexibility, it can meet the needs for children in different degrees. Furthermore, the entertaining environments, and interactive system like sharing and exhibiting make foreign language-learning more like a game than a lesson. New era always comes with power to molt from old times. The collaborative storytelling platform has opened a new page for education of foreign language.

Writing and reading for an audience encouraged and developed literacy skills. Storybird also helped the reluctant and shy students to write on their own. The use of artwork allowed students to develop deep reflection and higher-order thinking.

We may try this activity in a language class during our practice in schools. We can divide the class into groups. One group of students starts the story and then the next day, the rest of the students read what the first group wrote, then the second group adds to it and so on until the end of the story. All the students should participate actively.

In this case it was not only a great writing opportunity, but a great reading one as well. Creativity was high. We think that all the students always want to surprise the group that is coming afterwards.

Assessing Digital Stories

Although assessment is an integral part of the learning process, assessing emergent reflective experiences through traditional pre-planned learning outcomes, invariably proves unsatisfactory. This happens for three key reasons. Firstly, digital stories and other creative works invariably encounter subjectivity if assessed by traditional methods. Secondly, a growing body of research suggests only the person doing the reflection can truly determine the significance of the learning that occurs, Bourner [36,267]. Finally, reflective learning is process-driven so a more meaningful assessment is to invite learners to select an aspect of their digital story journey and to write about it, guided by co-negotiated learning outcomes that have meaning to the individual storyteller. It would be possible to assess how well the story was made and told but the story itself is the student's own experience and shouldn't be assessed.

Recommendations

These following recommendations have two purposes: firstly, to support the integration of vocational learning and literary development with course content through the creation of digital stories and, secondly, to provide lecturers with guidelines to set up a storytelling culture.

• Show learners examples of digital stories that use multimedia, including static and moving images, music and narrative.

• Facilitate discussions about elements of these stories such as theme, impact and craft to orientate learners to a reflective way of thinking and working.

• Consider whether to assess the reflective process or the digital story and justify your preference to colleagues and learners.

• Ascertain the digital skills of learners, value and utilize them.

• Explore a range of digital storytelling software options. (Moviemaker is free and easy to use).

• Build vocational learning and literacy skills of learners through reflective conversations and scriptwriting strategies related to course content and storyboard development.

• Allow plenty of time to move through each storytelling stage. Remember the learning is in the process. Have fun!

Conclusion

Change increasingly defines the nature of storytelling in an information age. Storytelling is rapidly and continuously changing as new technologies for information and communication emerge and users craft new methods for employing these technologies. Moreover, these new technologies for information and communication permit the exchange of even newer technologies and visions for their use. We are teachers of 21st century and we have to know how to prepare students for their virtual reality environment.

Meaningful technological integration is defined as curricula utilizing authentic tasks that intentionally and actively help learners to construct their own meanings from thinking about experiences, Jonassen [13]. Digital stories are a form of communication and as they are created, students apply critical thinking skills while selecting the appropriate media to convey the story's message to the audience. It provides the student with a learning environment to apply communication skills, work collaboratively, and think critically while addressing content and technology standards.

The purpose of this study was to to provide a clearer picture and a better understanding of the impact on student learning when teachers and students take advantage of digital storytelling for their teaching and learning tasks.

The findings of this study have implications for teachers of writing. Digital storytelling can be used in classroom settings as a means of teaching writing. In the virtual world, students can visit virtual places without any constraint of time and space. It can stimulate their imaginations and encourage more creative writing. Then they can visualize the stories they imagine, by creating objects and changing the forms of those objects, thereby realistically enacting their stories. Through the visualization, they can see the structure of the whole story clearly. It will help them to identify and correct mistakes they have made, to construct a solid logical structure, and to rearrange their thinking in a logical way.

As different software platforms for digital storytelling has advanced, it has been widely touted as a major advance that can offer meaningful support for educational purposes. There are several ways in which different software platforms for digital storytelling is expected to facilitate learning. One of its unique capabilities is the ability to provide students with the opportunity to learn in open-ended learning environments and to interact in ways that distance, time, or safety factors make unavailable. The type of activities supported by this capability allows for the prospect that students will be better able to master, retain, and share new knowledge as they actively engage in constructing knowledge in virtual learning environments. Jakes and Brennan [35] propose that, in the future, digital storytelling can be a potent learning experience that encompasses much of what society hopes that students will know and be able to perform in the future classroom.

References

1. Jacobsen, M. (2001). Building different bridges: Technology integration, engaged student learning, and new approaches to professional development. Paper presented at AERA 2001: What We Know and How We Know It, the 82nd Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, WA, April 10-14.

2. Kang, S. H., Ko, U., Bae, J. Y., Lee, I. H., Lee, J. Y., Jun, K. R., Jun, B. K., & Han, H. W. (2003)..Digital Storytelling. Seoul: Golden Bough.

3. Shin, B. J., & Park, H. S. (2008). The effect of digital storytelling type on the learner's fun and comprehension in virtual reality. Journal of the Korean Association of Information Education, 12(4), 417-425.

4. Park, E. J., & Seo, J. H. (2009). Applying digital storytelling technique to website navigation for improving emotional user experience. Proceeding of the International Association of Societies of Design Research 2009, Seoul, Korea, 25-28.

5. Gregori-Signes, C. (2008). Integrating the Old and the New: Digital Storytelling in the EFL Language Classroom.GRETA Journal, 16(1), 43-49.

6. Paul, N., & Fiebich, C. (2002). The elements of digital storytelling. Retrieved August12, 2009, from http://www.inms.umn.edu/elements/index.php.

7. Shin, B. J., & Park, H. S. (2008). The effect of digital storytelling type on the learner's fun and comprehension in virtual reality. Journal of the Korean Association of Information Education, 12(4), 417-425.

8. Baek, Y. K. (2005). Understanding and Utilization of Edutainment. Seoul: Jung-il.

9. Dickey, M.D. (2005). Engaging by design: How engagement strategies in popular computer and video games can inform instructional design.Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(2), 67-83.

10. Robin. B. (2008). Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century Classroom.Theory Into Practice, 47, 220-228.

11. Robin, B. (2007). The Convergence of Digital Storytelling and Popular Culture in Graduate Education. In R. Carlsen et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2007 (pp. 643-650). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

12. Stake, E. (1995). The art of case study research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

13. Jonassen, D., Peck, K., & Wilson, B. (1999). Learning with technology: A constructivist perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

14. Earle, R. S. (2002). The integration of instructional technology into public education: Promises and challenges. ET Magazine, 42(1), 5-13. http://bookstoread.com/etp/earle.pdf. Retrieved 11 January 2007.

15. Allen, D., & Tanner, K. (2006). Rubrics: Tools for making learning goals and evaluation criteria explicit for both teachers and learners. CBE—Life Sciences Education, 5, 197-203.

16. Hoffman, B. (1997). Integrating technology into school.Education Digest, 62(5), 51-55.

17. ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education). (2003). National educational technology standards. http://www.iste.org. Retrieved 15 March 2006.

18. Mergendollar, J. (1997). Technology and learning: The research.Education Digest, 62(8), 17-18.

19. Nanjappa, A., & Grant, M. (2003). Constructing on constructivism: The role of technology. Electronic Journal for the integration of Technology in Education, 2(1). http://ejite.isu.edu/Volume2No1/ nanjappa.htm. Retrieved 11 January 2007.

20. Jonassen, D. H., & Carr, C. (2000). Mindtools: Affording multiple knowledge representations in learning. In S. P. Lajoie (Ed.), Computers as cognitive tools, Vol. 2: No more walls (pp. 165-196). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

21. Wheatley, G. (1991). Constructivist perspectives on science and mathematics learning.Science Education, 75(1), 9-21

22. Duffy, M., & Cunningham, J. (1996). Constructivism: Implications for the design and delivery of instruction. In D. H. Jonassen (Ed.), Educational communications and technology (pp. 170-199). New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan.

23. Lim, P., & Tay, Y. (2003). Information and communication technologies (ICT) in an elementary school: Students' engagement in higher-order thinking.Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia, 12(4), 425-451.

24. Pedersen, E. (1995). Storytelling and the art of teaching.FORUM, 33(1). http://exchanges.state.gov/forum. Retrieved 17 February 2008.

25. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

26. Standley, M. (2003). Digital storytelling using new technology and the power of stories to help our students learn—and teach. Cable in the Classroom. http://www.ciconline.org/home. Retrieved 5 December 2006.

27. Meadows, D. (2003). Digital storytelling: Research-based practice in new media.Visual Communication, 2(2), 189-193.

28. Lynch, G., & Fleming, D. (2007) Innovation through design: A constructivist approach to learning. LAB 3000, RMIT University. http://lab.3000.com.au/research/research/index.jsp. Retrieved 5 March 2007.

29. Barrett, H. (2006). Researching and evaluating digital storytelling as a deep learning tool. In C. Crawford, et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2006 (pp. 647-654). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

30. Robin, B. (2005). Educational uses of digital storytelling. Main directory for the educational uses of digital storytelling. Instructional technology Program. University of Huston. http://www.coe.uh.edu/digital- storytelling/default.htm. Retrieved 12 February 2007.

31. Jonassen, D.H., & Hernandez-Serrano, J. (2002). Case-based reasoning and instructional design using stories to support problem solving.Educational Technology Research and Development, 50(2), 65-77.

32. Gils, F. (2005). Potential applications of digital storytelling in education. In 3rd Twente Student Conference on IT, University of Twente, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, Enschede, February 17-18.

33. Harris, J. (2005). Our agenda for technology integration: It's time to choose. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 5(2). http://www.citejournal.org/vol5/iss2/editorial/article1.cfm. Retrieved 27 February 2007.

34. Anderson A. Nancy. 2005. Elementary Children's Literature. London: Pearson Bassnett S. and Grundy P. 1993. Language through literature. London: Longman. Ellis, G. and J. Brewster. 1991. The Storytelling Handbook for Primary Teachers. London: Penguin.

35. Jakes, D. S., & Brennan, J. (2005). Capturing stories, capturing lives: An introduction to digital storytelling. Retrieved February 8, 2010, from http://www.jakesonline.org/dstory_ice.pdf.

36. Bourne, T. (2003). Assessing reflective learning.Education and Training, (45)5

Код для цитирования: Скопировать