Story time
Digital narratives are something we will be making over the last few weeks of our e-learning course this semester. I came across this article on digital story telling which asserts that in order to make sense of the information children are bombarded with on a daily basis, it is important that teachers provide students with activities–like digital storytelling–in order to develop their analytical skills. The article suggests using digital story telling in lessons by moving beyond students creating their own narrative and towards using non-fictional events and presenting them from a different perspective–for example, writing a digital story in the first person which describes the feelings of someone who experienced something at a given historical event. I like the idea of using digital narratives in this way since it integrates the technology in a meaningful and relevant way, by integrating the story telling with a number of KLAs, in this example HSIE and English.
The article emphasises the idea that students are actually engaging with information in a more personal and meaningful way, rather than presenting cold, hard facts. I particularly like the way the author concluded the article: We want students to be able to artfully use the digital media in ways that dance ideas together into illuminated understandings — digital storytelling is a powerful process that taps into these skills.
So do I!
