Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners Through Digital Storytelling
Classrooms of today are composed of students with diverse learning needs and learning styles. Teachers are faced with the challenge of addressing curricular content while meeting the needs of students with differing skills in reading and writing. Research and scholarly literature support that by building on children’s natural storytelling ability, incorporating digital storytelling into educational practice can help students develop oral, listening and comprehension skills.
Whaley (2002) emphasizes that storytelling can involve all children, regardless of ability level. It can be rewarding for students who are less capable to gain respect through their storytelling skills, and for children who struggle or may not be ready to to work independently, group stories can provide scaffolding.
Royer & Richards (2008) argue that students increase skill development in reading and writing while developing technology skills through active learning, cooperative learning, fluency, graphic organizers, mental imagery, questioning, sequencing, and summarizing. As no two children are the same, no single learning task can be appropriate for all students in a classroom. Through digital storytelling, each student brings their own language and experiences to access their own prior knowledge and therefore build upon their own reading and writing capabilities in the areas of comprehension, vocabulary, decoding and fluency. Digital storytelling can build content knowledge and support struggling students through providing differentiated reading and writing activities at each student’s level and can span from simple personal narrative to complex research reports (Royer & Richards, 2008).
Gregory, Steelman & Caverly (2009) argue that digital storytelling has a multidimensional approach to learning. It fosters skills in critical reading, critical thinking, oral communications, written communications and technology. “Digital storytelling is a promising instructional technology that engages developmental students in powerful ways and build learner confidence” (Gregory et al., 2009, p. 43).
Whaley (2002) emphasizes that storytelling can involve all children, regardless of ability level. It can be rewarding for students who are less capable to gain respect through their storytelling skills, and for children who struggle or may not be ready to to work independently, group stories can provide scaffolding.
Royer & Richards (2008) argue that students increase skill development in reading and writing while developing technology skills through active learning, cooperative learning, fluency, graphic organizers, mental imagery, questioning, sequencing, and summarizing. As no two children are the same, no single learning task can be appropriate for all students in a classroom. Through digital storytelling, each student brings their own language and experiences to access their own prior knowledge and therefore build upon their own reading and writing capabilities in the areas of comprehension, vocabulary, decoding and fluency. Digital storytelling can build content knowledge and support struggling students through providing differentiated reading and writing activities at each student’s level and can span from simple personal narrative to complex research reports (Royer & Richards, 2008).
Gregory, Steelman & Caverly (2009) argue that digital storytelling has a multidimensional approach to learning. It fosters skills in critical reading, critical thinking, oral communications, written communications and technology. “Digital storytelling is a promising instructional technology that engages developmental students in powerful ways and build learner confidence” (Gregory et al., 2009, p. 43).
The Digital Story about Digital Stories
In our journey to complete this project, our group looked at software and webtools for creating digital stories. It is amazing how many tools there are. The first challenge was to find the right tool to create my story. I viewed examples provided by the instructor and viewed Alan Levine’s (2007) 50+ Web Ways to Tell a Story. I visited several sites such as GoAnimate, Animoto, Storybox and Empressr. These sites either did not allow me to add voice, were not appropriate for the content of my story (I was not a fan of the animations) or the user had to be 13 years of age or older to create an account. Empressr was my favorite overall, but as I primarily teach 11 and 12 year old children, the age restriction turned me away. After investigating a few of the suggested sites, I made my decision to go with Photo Story 3. It is a free downloadable application that allows users to add photos, narrate, add music, motion effects and transitions. The most important for me is that the user does not need to create an account to use it. After students create their stories I can email them to parents, post on my classroom website and share to their digital portfolios. Please enjoy my "non-fiction" digital story about meeting the needs of diverse learners through digital storytelling.
Corinne McWhinney (ETEC 532 65A)
Corinne McWhinney (ETEC 532 65A)