No doubt, no matter how old you are, that there is nothing like listening or telling to a good story!
As we move rapidly into a new era of technology, the delivery of story telling has moved from the traditional format of words on a page to one that is alive through using various multi media.
Digital storytelling is the over arching phrase to describe this new trend. There are various forms of digital storytelling, namely podcasting and videos uploaded on Youtube. Having this medium we are not limited to the traditional formats and are able to source a variety of stories from around the world, thus giving us a salad bowl of cultural experiences.
At present I am team teaching with an English teacher who is running a unit on social issues in Australia in the 19th century. They are looking at a poem called 'the man from Ironbark'. Whilst reading this myself I made a connection with Sweeney Todd and so I searched on the net for images, poems and a historical background on him. Gathering them all together I was able to create a variety of activities using the material I created. To go a bit further I am currently looking at finding digital stories about Sweeney Todd, maybe from an English historian or one of London's local history societies who look at the dark side of London's history!
Pros of using digital storytelling in class is that it is a visual stimulus, it's another voice rather than the teacher and it is much more student paced, so we can stop and start it to determine understanding and have a discussion. In addition digital storytelling can be an activity that the students use themselves to show their understanding, it allows them to access and express through various multi-media. However this process can be quite time consuming, but managed properly it can be an extremely beneficial activity.
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