The effectiveness of Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling represents the redo of an old even ancient tradition. Story telling exists as long as language has, and through time it has evolved to include songs, music, plays, movies, and now digital storytelling. What story telling does for students is place knowledge into the learner's mind as a mental construct. This is then processed into short term memory or long term memory. However, traditional story tellers find it hard to convince those around them for their attention. Technology enhances the attractiveness of storytelling, much like plays and movies have in the past.

Another upside to this technology is that it involves the viewer, in our case the student, so well that is feels as if the student is experiencing the story for themselves and thus creating knowledge as they attempt to understand. Throughout the story, the student, if listening, is forever trying to create meaning from the information they are told. This combines with students' preconceptions and ideas and creates new knowledge and understanding.

I have used this technology once with mixed results inside the classroom. I utilised this technology for the purposes of an introduction tool where students would introduce who they are, where they live, etc, in the form of a story. While some students performed this task well, there were some who were more shy about the issue of revealing things about themselves.

Siemens, G (Dec, 2004), Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age, http://www.elearningspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm