Some Thoughts...

Does digital storytelling take away from our already crowded curriculum?

Digital storytelling is a cross-curricular activity. Teachers might choose to focus on the content of the story thereby addressing humanities or literacy outcomes, they may choose to look at design and technology aspects or to concentrate on the art concepts involved in communicating in this medium.

In particular, stories already published on the Internet offer real-life perspectives through which we can see the human side of many topics. For example, in this example, the author teaches forgiveness and responsibility through her digital story; this example is about conservation and land use: here the author talks about how art has helped her to overcome personal issues.

As our State's curriculum focuses more and more specific training in skills, rather than just on content, digital storytelling offers authentic experiences in researching, publishing and creating (Jentikoff, 2009). Student's also gain experience in validating Internet sources, learning how to appropriately reference information and about ownership and intellectual property. These cross-curricular skills are often found to be difficult to teach as they require a specific context in order for students to fully understand; digital storytelling offers a concrete, personal and relevant context in order to experience and make judgements about Internet content, research and ownership.

The issue of a crowded curriculum is not new, however, perhaps, from a technological determinist view, our priorities should be shifting to follow the development of storytelling tools. The National Curriculum Board has recognised this:
"Digital and online technologies continue to
profoundly transform how members of Australian
society work, meet, keep in touch, express themselves,
share, build and store knowledge, and access material
for pleasure and learning. Clearly, digital and online
materials present the English curriculum with new
teaching opportunities. Enhancing the access of all
teachers and students to these resources is critical.
(NCB, 2009 p.15 quoted in "Jentikoff (2009))


References:
Jetnikoff, A (2009) "Digital Storytelling, Podcasts, Blogs & Vlogs" English in Australia Volume 44 Number 2 • 2009
NCB (2009) Shape of the Australian Curriculum: English. Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority