Digital Storytelling and Reflection Through Technology: Making the Traditional More Exceptional

After reading and reflecting on the articles for the past week, I am most intrigued by the idea of incorporating Digital Storytelling into my school’s Kindergarten curriculum. In years past, I have used traditional storytelling to convey important morals to my students; however, even with their active involvement in the process (i.e. making hand gestures, chanting repeating lines, etc.), I am still the one who is structuring the experience and telling the story. Digital Storytelling seems like a reasonable solution that allows students to structure and convey their own narrative or fictionalized stories. For the purposes of my classroom, I fortunately would have the flexibility and technology support to incorporate this type of activity into one of our Thematic Play Units. Ideally, I would have my students create drawings, either using a software program like Paint or scanning in their own drawings. During the process of recording their audio narration, I would encourage them to think about the story elements and use their creativity. By sharing these stories as a group, I feel my students would become increasingly confident in expressing themselves through storytelling while developing a level of proficiency in the technology. Digital Storytelling is also a great tool for differentiated instruction in the older grades, especially for those who struggle with writing out their great ideas. In the article Young Children and Computers: Storytelling and Learning in a Digital Age, I agree with the authors’ tip to adopt a “less is more” approach; children and teachers should work with only a few programs in order to avoid becoming overwhelmed and discouraged by the technology. If we want young children to feel comfortable sharing their ideas and stories through different mediums, we have to carefully select the tools that we want them to use so that they are properly motivated.

I am noticing how often the idea of reflection emerges in the readings as well as our class discussions. Reflection is such an invaluable concept even in our adult lives; I remember the weekly journal reflections in school and how structured and turned off I was of the whole process by the time I reached high school. Using blogs and programs like VoiceThread are, for the most part, exciting to children of all ages and should be used (appropriately of course) to make the reflection process more enjoyable and meaningful. I agree with others that the video-confessional approach may be more difficult for teachers to coordinate in their classrooms; however, the idea of making genuine reflection go beyond a structured pencil and paper paragraph is more exciting and practical for these children of the Digital Age. I admit that I am very much looking forward to everyone’s video reflections next week!