Running Head: Digital Storytelling Lesson

Digital Storytelling Lesson

Carla Benton

Bellarmine University

LITR 630
Digital Storytelling 2

What the Research Says

Alan Davis defines a digital story as a form of short narrative, usually a personal

narrative told in the first person, presented as a short movie for display on a television or

computer monitor or projected onto a screen (Ohler, 2005). When writing a story, instead of

focusing on technology first, we need to teach the students to focus on the story first. This is

where story maps and storyboards are useful. The map forces students to focus on the story

elements and the storyboard helps students to organize their work (Ohler, 2005). Digital stories

provide powerful media literacy learning opportunities because students are involved in the

creation and analysis of the media in which they are immersed (Ohler, 2005). Digital

storytelling allows technology users to tell stories in new ways while still using the traditional

methods of writing a story (topic, research, script, story development). The story is enhanced

with graphics, audio, text, and video so that it can be played on any personal technology device

(Robin, 2008). Digital storytelling has materialized as a groundbreaking practice that allows

students deeper commitment with content while inspiring the use of critical thinking and

technological skills necessary in the 21st century (Shelby-Caffey, 2014). Traditional and new

literacy practices and skills are merged in digital storytelling and the result is very creative final

product (Shelby-Caffey, 2014).

ISTE Standards

For this lesson, I addressed ISTE standards 1b and 3b. According to 1b, students are to

create original works as a means of personal or group expression. The use of photo story is

perfect for doing this. It is my intention that even though students researched together, the

product should be unique for each student. A key component of 3b is the ability to locate and

organize information from a variety of sources. The students begin with information in their
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wiki. They are then required to transfer that information to a story map then on to a storyboard

before finally publishing their work as a digital story. The transferring of information to each of

these different mediums demonstrates their ability to organize and locate information.

ILA Standards

Standards 2.2 and 4.2 from the ILA are addressed in this lesson. A component of standard

2.2 is the incorporation of traditional print, digital, and online resources as instructional tools to

enhance student learning. The students are required to use the wiki page where they collected

their information on their animal as a basis for their story map. The story map is completed using

traditional paper and pencil before it is transferred to a storyboard in the form of a PowerPoint

template. The students then take the storyboard and create, with assistance, a digital story for

publishing. According to 4.2, teachers should provide instruction and instructional formats that

engage students as agents of their own learning. My students will be excited and highly engaged

to use the computers to find pictures of their animals. This will carry over to the creation of their

own digital story on their animal. To be able to record their own voice and then to publish it to

the internet will have my students trying to do their very best work.

Kentucky Teacher Standards

I addressed KTS standards 6.1, 6.2, and 6.5 in this lesson. I used the wiki, a powerpoint,

and photo story 3 to design and plan my instruction. The class used the same technology along

with Chromebooks and computers in order to complete the lesson. I made sure to cite my sources

when I uploaded my facts to the wiki page and then when I uploaded my digital story to

YouTube.
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Common Core Standards

For this lesson, I addressed several of the Common Core Standards. WK6 was addressed

when we helped the students use the wiki, storyboard PowerPoint, and finally Photo Story 3 to

publish their writing in the form of a digital story. The use of the story map and the the

storyboard helped my students to recall information from experiences or gather information

from provided sources to answer a question (WK8). The use of the storyboard aids in address

RIK7 and SLKK5 because the students are required to write a caption for each picture and then

add script that tells more information. When the students record the voice over for their digital

stories, they need to speak audibly and express their ideas clearly to have a successful story

(SLK6).

TPACK

The digital storytelling lesson meets TPACK in many ways. First, the lesson meets

content knowledge because I know that my students are required to explore a variety of digital

tools to produce and publish writing (WK6). They use story map and storyboard to organize the

information we gathered in the wiki lesson while conducting our research (WK8). By walking

the class through the entire lesson first, I am enabling my higher achieving students to get started

on the project. This frees me to help those who need step-by-step assistance. The use of

technology (wiki, Chromebooks, Photo Story 3, etc.) throughout the lesson addresses the

technology knowledge of the TPACK framework (Koehler, 2012). The entire lesson incorporates

technology. My students use technology to organize their ideas into a storyboard with

PowerPoint. They then take the storyboard and upload that information into Photo Story 3 to add

voice and finally publish their digital story online. The TPACK is addressed completely and is
Digital Storytelling 5

intertwined when all of these things are used (Koehler, 2012). The use of Photo Story 3 is the

perfect medium for organizing and publishing the results of their research in a digital medium.
Digital Storytelling 6

Resources

English Language Arts Standards. (n.d.). Retrieved June 25, 2017, from

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/ ISTE Standards. (n.d.).

http://literacy630.weebly.com/uploads/5/2/5/0/52508411/20-14_iste_standards-s_pdf.pdf

Kentucky Teacher Standards [Word]. (n.d.).

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http://literacy630.weebly.com/uploads

/5/2/5/0/52508411/kentuckyteacherstandards.doc

Koehler, M. (2012, September 24). TPACK explained. Retrieved June 25, 2017, from

http://tpack.org/

Ohler, J. (2005). The World of Digital Storytelling. Educational Leadership, (63(4), 44-47.

Robin, B. R. (2008). Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century

Classroom. Theory Into Practice,47(3), 220-228. doi:10.1080/00405840802153916

Shelby-Caffey, C., Ubeda, E., & Jenkins, B. (2014). Digital storytelling revisited. Reading

Teacher, 68(3), 191-199. Doi:10.1002/trtr.1273.

Standards. (n.d.). Retrieved June 22, 2017, from https://www.literacyworldwide.org/get-

resources/standards/standards-for-reading-professionals