Hello there! Do you love to read? Are stories catching your attention? If your answer is definitely yes, it is so nice to know that there are bookworms among us like me, too. But what if your answer is no? What if you don't like reading books or novels? When we ask someone, who literally avoid reading books, about the reasons for this issue, nearly all complain about they are bored while they are reading: The length of the book, lack of visual items, not focusing on the book exactly make the process difficult for them. But as you would appreciate, in the golden age of technology, we have an easy solution for this complaints: Digital Storytelling
What is Digital Storytelling?
Digital storytelling is activities which are based on telling stories with the help of technological tools or software in a nutshell. It enables you tell stories through a great variety of audio, images, voice, videos, musics or text.
How did the process develop? What were the steps we did?
In this project, we worked in pairs and my project partner is my dear friend Kıymet Yasavul. We chose to create a fictional story, out of 3 options which are telling a story about friendship or a demonstration of how to process. Our story is called "The One Eyed Hero" (you can also find it at the end of my post) which is about a girl, actually our hero, stopping at nothing. I should admit that it was a really long process for us. Firstly, we wrote our script and created a storyboard which was the basic issue of this project. Inasmuch as we haven't limits while we create it, finding a story which satisfied us took time. We tried to make it a creative and entertaining one and we also created it based on a social meaning. After we had finished our story, we searched for images in compliance with our characters and events on the Internet, especially on the site Deviantart which includes great pictures people drew. We printed out pictures and drew them again by ourselves with carbon papers. On the following day, we painted them, it was the most entertaining part of this process because it has been a long time since we painted pictures, then we cut them. We downloaded some musics which support the points of our story. We thought we could record our voices, music and video simultaneously, however it was a more difficult process than we thought and it made us really anxious at the beginning. Firstly, we recorded our voices and music. For music part, we used "Aero Playlist Player" program which enabled us play two songs at the same time. Since our voices were echoed in the empty classrooms, we did it on the outside. At this point, everyone's laughing or talking was heard in our recordings -hopefully we could be successful at the final trying- Finally, we adjusted the voices-music and video clips via Windows Movie Maker. So, it was a difficult but mostly entertaining process for us. In order to we really satisfied with the result, we have already forgotten problems we encountered. :)
While we were painting pictures :)
What is the role of the collaboration in this process?
Two people means two different point of views, more creative ideas, less fatigue and saving time. Throughout this process we also motivated each other and we both take responsibility which was the key point that took away us the satisfying result more easily. All in all, thanks to collaborative learning, we developed our project and finished it in a better way in every aspect.
Will student's creating digital stories contribute to their foreign language development?
There are numerous advantages of Digital Storytelling for educational purposes. It provides encouragement and motivation for students as they learn how to use technology for the purpose of their EFL improvement and their development will be faster and easier under favor of these enjoyable activities. Digital stories can addresses both visual, auditory and kinesthetic learners at the same time. Additionally, students who play a part in a digital storytelling will enhance their language skills by developing ideas in foreign language, writing scripts, pronouncing them and so on. This also improve the formation of collaborative learning which is a plus for development of empathy and responsibility. The only thing you should do is keep your students informed about tools and create the task's processes step by step.
As a teacher you are the one that make a choice. You can keep away from innovations or provide your students with creative tasks or information. "In the age of information, ignorance is a choice" as Donny Miller said. But, if you ask me, for the sake of your students do not make a choice like this. You can see our digital story below. See you in my next posts!
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