Using technology for storytelling: Tools for children

ESOL pre-service teachers’ experiences and learning in completing a reflection paper and digital storytelling

“…Digital storytelling enables computer users to collect, create, analyse, and combine visual images with written text, and helps them become creative storytellers (Burmark, 2004;Robin, 2008). These processes involve a high degree of information literacy, critical thinking, and creativity, and the results reflect the storyteller's knowledge, experiences, values, and imagination (Farmer, 2004). In this paper, I use the term digital storytelling to refer to the dialogic and reflective task of telling stories by using diverse technology in the educational contexts of electronic literacies.…”

“…As one of the main assignments in the class, digital storytelling effectively showed students' deep understanding of the content and critical voices (Farmer, 2004;Shelby-Caffey et al, 2014). Since the course objectives were to enhance students' awareness of the relationship between language and culture and to reinforce their understanding of theories and pedagogy, digital storytelling successfully demonstrated and provided sufficient information to assess students' learning and achievements.…”

“…The students did not stay at this level of learning but further applied their knowledge to future teaching as their current or future utterances. Therefore, the experiences of completing digital storytelling lend students a sense of proficiency and competence with technologically supported learning environments, and motivates them to use instructional technology in their future classes (Burmark, 2004;Farmer, 2004;Kobayashi, 2012;Robin, 2008).…”

Children Creating Multimodal Stories About a Familiar Environment

“…These were evident in the stories that literally recounted classroom and playground events and experiences (Stories 1-5). But more than this was evidence in Stories 8-11 of a sense of power within this familiar setting, of imagining new ways of engagement and new ways of "being" (Farmer, 2004;Theobald, Danby, & Ailwood, 2011) in the stories that expressed adventures within and beyond the immediate school day setting. The collaborative nature of the task was important to the final multimodal stories.…”

“…Storytelling allows children to express their present sense of self or “place” in the world (Comber, ), to explore alternative or future versions as they project to future aspirations—”a life not yet imagined” (Farmer, , p. 155). As authorities on their own lives (Theobald, Danby, & Ailwood, ), children are well equipped to share their unique perspectives about what they know.…”