Digital Storytelling: Self-Efficacy and Digital Literacy

This paper is about an exploratory research project that engages college students in using digital storytelling as one of the approaches to build their e-portfolio through reflection and self-assessment of the learning process. Participants (N = 20) are from a mid-western American university. The study examines the potential of digital storytelling employed in higher education settings, and explores how digital storytelling can be used as an effective communication tool for facilitating reflective practice based on constructivist principles. It asks questions about whether digital storytelling can enhance self-efficacy and in what way it can improve digital literacy skills of students in a teacher preparation program. Suggested impact on education includes: balancing traditional methods and new teaching approaches; finding new ways of creating educational portfolio; enhancing language literacy, visual literacy, and media literacy; and meeting higher educational technology standards. Theoretical Framework Storytelling has been important to individuals since the early days of civilization, and personal stories serve many of the same functions in the modern time as they did in the early days. In education, storytelling remains a way to teach subtle points and make elusive abstractions concrete (Roe, Alfred & Smith, 1998). Two researchers even envisioned a possible connection between storytelling and how our brains work. In his “Tell Me a Story,” Roger Schank (1990) proposed that the core of intelligence is accessing specific concrete narrative stories. Jerome Bruner, on the other hand, posed that our brains are wired in narrative stories, that without narrative storytelling skills “we could never endure the conflicts and contradictions that social life generates” (Bruner, 1990, p. 97). Interestingly, while these researchers were highlighting the importance of storytelling in the fields of artificial intelligence, psychology and learning theory, digital storytelling merged since the early 1990s as a result of the advancement of newer technologies. The rapid development of multimedia and hypermedia technologies has opened up new avenues for making stories on computers and computer networks. As with any art form, digital storytelling continues to evolve to accommodate new technologies, purposes, and creative visions (Ohler, 2006). With latest developments of computers, multimedia systems and the Internet, images, sounds, animations, and video clips can be brought together with texts, providing a platform for a wide range of story formats combining language literacy, visual literacy, and media literacy. Digital storytelling, according to Alan Davis, is “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” (2004, p. 1). A leading figure in the development of digital storytelling is Joe Lambert. The emergence of this approach is described in his book “Digital Storytelling: Capturing Lives, Creating Community” (Lambert, 2002). Lambert and his associates has offered numerous workshop since the mid 1990s, focusing on helping people tell their own stories and embracing emerging technologies for creating the stories. Creating digital stories offers a great opportunity to engage learners in media literacy and in learning about how the media influence our perceptions of the world (Goodman, 2003; Tyner, 1998). Digital storytelling attracts educators for a combination of reasons. One motivation relates to learning and cognition. Dual-coding theory (Paivio, 1986) and Cognitive theory of multimedia learning (Mayer & Moreno, 2002) suggest that learners possess both visual and verbal information processing systems. Auditory and textual information are processes in the verbal system, and images are processed in the visual system. Educators and their students are attracted to the multimedia teaching and learning method of digital storytelling because it can address learning through both systems. On the other hand, the purpose of education, as John Dewey defined, should be the freeing of individual capacity in a progressive growth directed to social aims (Dewey, 1916, p. 98). To this end, Vygotsky (1978) stressed the importance of an education built around shared experiences to create a common language, and common understanding. Methodology and Implementation This exploratory research project approaches the question and potential of digital storytelling in higher education settings. The purpose is to develop and use a new instruction approach based upon the above-discussed theoretical framework. The project aims to help undergraduate students (teacher candidates) integrate multimedia technology into education, learning how to use appropriate technological tools to create digital stories, reflecting on their understanding and perspectives in the education they received in the United States. Furthermore, through the compilation of their own digital stories, the participants learn to address professional issues as teacher candidates. This research project also examines how technology can be effectively used to enhance language literacy, visual literacy, and media literacy, relating to the National Educational Technology Standards for students. The following research questions were explored: Does digital storytelling enhance students’ self-efficacy? Does digital storytelling improve students’ knowledge and use of multimedia technology tools? Does digital storytelling enhancing language literacy, visual literacy, and media literacy? Does digital storytelling help balance traditional methods and new teaching approaches with technology? How does digital storytelling help college students in teacher education programs meet up-to-date educational technology standards? The implementation of the project occurs during two regular semesters. Participants (N = 20) are voluntary students in the teacher preparation program from a mid -western American university. Participants are asked to address professional issues, understanding, and beliefs as future teachers, and are encouraged to use digital story telling as a way to record their thoughts on the process and improvement of teaching. Guidance has been given to the participants in steps of brainstorming, transcript drafting and revision, digital story drafting and revision, digital story boarding and editing, and digital story publishing, etc. A total of 6 workshops are offered, once a month for six months, 3 to 5 hours for each workshop focusing on different steps of digital story composition. The designed workshop schedule is displayed in Table 1. Table 1: Workshop Schedule and Plan Workshop # Duration Workshop Focus 1 3 Hours Project overview Examples of types of portfolios Review of narrative storytelling in traditional format Storyboarding techniques Questionnaire Technology equipment access and use 2 3 Hours Reflections Brainstorming Concept mapping Getting to know available software and hardware Personal choice of applications Technological training 3 4 Hours Transcript drafting Transcript revision with group discussions Work session on digitizing information Training of video and audio applications Digital storytelling boarding 4 5 Hours Putting images / pictures together for digital storytelling Matching multimedia materials with transcripts Digital storytelling boarding and editing 5 5 Hours Work sessions for digital storytelling revision Multimedia materials editing Finalizing digital story contents Starting recording voiceover 6 5 Hours Work sessions on digital storytelling final editing Finalizing sound tracks Publishing digital storytelling Extra 2 Hours Presentation of digital storytelling projects Feedbacks from audience Questionnaire A mixed design of quantitative and qualitative methods is used for data collection and analyses. Preand postquestionnaires/surveys are developed to collect data on students’ knowledge and skills in the areas of educational foundations, teacher education, and technology usage. Research data collection also includes: records of project processes, online discussions, artifacts of student work, and interviews with students. The following technologies are used: computers (both Mac and PC systems), scanners, digital cameras, digital video cameras, external hard drives, headsets with microphones, and software programs including Premier, iMovie, iPhoto, iTunes, Adobe Photoshop Deluxe, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Inspiration, etc, that are available in the computer lab. Results and Discussion In this brief paper, the following discussions will focus on the results of questionnaire scores, students’ written answers to certain questions, and examples of student work. A more detailed analysis and discussions about the processes of digital storytelling construction, online discussions, artifacts of student work, and interviews with students will be carried out on a separate paper. The preand post-questionnaire used in this research include the same point-check questions but different questions for written answers. The following tables display the overall student perspectives, based on calculated means and percentile, on each category examined in the questionnaires, with scoring systems explained at the bottom of each table. Means of both preand post-questionnaires are included and compared in each table. Table 2 shows the overall student perspective on “Education Knowledge Base,” Table 3 on “General Technology Skills,” Table 4 on “Educational Technology Integration” and Table 5 on “Multimedia Applications. ” Table 2: Comparison of Overall Student Perspective on Education Knowledge Base Pre-Questionnaire Post-Questionnaire Specific Areas of Interest Mean Percent Mean Percent Narrative storytelling 2.20 55% 3.30 83% Different types of portfolios 2.10 53% 3.10 78% Construction of an educational portfolio in a traditional format