Digital Storytelling in the Classroom

Ohler, J. (2008). Digital storytelling in the classroom: new media pathway to literacy ,learning and creativity. Thousand Oaks, Ca. Corwin Press.

As I have mentioned previously, my school/system does not have a person on staff who helps the teachers learn how to integrate technology into the classroom. When I am looking for articles, I try to find ones that I can share with my colleagues since I have taken it upon myself to help them learn about integrating technology. This article is especially relevant to me and my fellow English department memebers as it deals with digital stories. If I were working with teachers in an instructional technology position, I would love to share this with them as a great project for their students to complete. Ohler (2008) describes digital storytelling as the use of “personal digital technology to combine a number of media into a coherent narrative” (p.15). He then goes on to talk about the kind of digital stories that students can produce which can be anything from narration combined with still pictures to actual movies produced by the students. Since the beginning of my teaching career, I have assigned students storyboard assignments; they would be required to write a storyboard as their own version of a text we just read or modeling a type of literature, etc. Since I now have more technology available to me in the classroom, I have begun to think about them creating digital storyboards with Movie Maker. While I agree with Ohler that the “rapid evolution of digital technology is both exciting and inspiring, as well as intimidating and confusing,” (p. 16), allowing your students to create digital stories opens up a whole new world of learning opportunities for them.