Using Digital Storytelling to Help First-Grade Students' Adjustment to School

Abstract

When coming to school for the first time, children might face a number of adjustment problems. The study presents the results of a project which used digital storytelling for helping first-grade primary school students during this transitional period. It was examined whether, through the development of the digital stories, students could understand how the school functions and whether this process helped them to change their attitudes and behaviors, thus achieving a smoother adaptation to the school environment. Students' active participation and behavioral modeling to enhance positive behaviors provided the theoretical basis. Due to the students' young age, their teachers functioned as their "hands", executing their instructions when developing the stories. At the same time, however, they indirectly guided them to certain key-points that had to be highlighted, without openly lecturing them. Observations and interviews with the classes' teachers and with the students that presented significant adaptation problems were used for data collection purposes. The results are considered satisfactory. Adaptation issues ceased to pose a significant problem and the overall classes' climate was improved. Finally, due to the project's short duration, it can be applied relatively easily, without altering the school's timetable.

Positive adjustment to first grade despite divorce: Lessons for school psychologists

“…The use of visual participatory activities was purposeful and advantageous to the generation of rich data, given how ‘child-friendly’ (Groundwater-Smith, Dockett, & Bottrell, 2015, p. 105) visual methods are. Visual activities included Draw-and-Talk (see Bendelow, Carpenter, Vautier, & Williams, 2002), Photovoice (see Sitter, 2017), and the creation of a digital story (see Fokides, 2016). During the creation of the digital story Sarah verbalized how she adjusted well to first grade while the first author wrote down her account.…”

Attitudes of Primary School Students in UAE Towards Using Digital Story-Telling as a Learning Method in Classroom

“…It contributes to creating an educational environment that is deemed pleasant and convenient for learning. It improves student's ability to memorize data and recall it when needed (Fokides, 2016).…”

The Effect of L2 Listening Texts Adapted to the Digital Story on the Listening Lesson

“…It is seen that technological dimension adds a significant potential to traditional storytelling (McLellan, 2006). Story, as a useful tool both in traditional and digital aspects (Fokides, 2016), is used as a functional application to develop listening skills.…”

“…At the editing scenario text and presentation stage of DST creation, both DST creators and the audience actively uses listening (Banazevsky, 2002;Van & Gills, 2005;Yamac & Ulusoy, 2006;Bran, 2009;Miller 2009;Slvyester & Greenedge, 2009;Gubrium, 2010;Wang & Zhan, 2010;Gordon, 2011;Nguyen 2011;Simsek 2012;Yang & Wu, 2012;Bozdogan 2012;Bumgarner, 2012;Hull & Katz, 2006;Ozkoz & Elola 2016;Fokides 2016). At the process of DST creation, voice is recorded, and records are listened, and these records are edited according to feedbacks (Bumgarner, 2012;Castañeda, 2013;Ozkoz & Elola, 2016).…”