Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling in the modern age of technology is an excellent form of learning. In the age of technology the United States is falling behind and if students are to complete on a global level this would be a beneficial tool to incorporate in the 21^st century classroom. When I critically thought about the benefit of digital storytelling and how it would and could assist the various learning styles, it is my opinion that students with IEP’s and English language learners would gain substantial fluency through this form of medium. Trying to teach students with learning disabilities can be difficult, but when technology is incorporated students become more engaged and interested in their own learning. For example, English language learners can increase their fluency by creating a digital story and including a translation of the story to help in their transition to understanding English. Students who have challenges with sight words for reading comprehension or writing difficulties would benefit with the implementation of digital storytelling by meeting their learning styles with various strategies. Students would become more interested in their learning. In my opinion when I assessed their current interest in computers, I-Phone’s and I-Pads, digital storytelling with the inclusion of these forms of medium would lead to higher order thinking skills on the Blooms Taxonomy chart. This is true, since the elements of digital storytelling delivers and combines the art of telling stories, in various forms to attract many learning style, which are kinetics, audio and visual. However, there is a disadvantage to digital storytelling in the classroom. This disadvantage resides in the lack of resources/laptops for every student and how time consuming it would be to teach a technique without adequate equipment. Teachers must first model the technique of creating a narrative, video or image, then the class would have to do a simulation together and then they must practice the new technique of creating a story via technology. Despite the disadvantage of not having the resources, students must learn how to use digital storytelling to enhance and develop their technological literary skills to be competitive in the ever changing world of digital storytelling and becoming 21^st century citizens.