2.1 Digital storytelling

Stories have always been important in classrooms because educators can use them to stimulate pupils’ critical thinking skills (McDrury and Alterio, 2003) and to help them develop a variety of skills in communication, search, collaboration and task completion (Di Blas et al., 2009).

Digital tools enrich the process of storytelling by providing new ways to support story authoring and fostering new forms of creativity (Di Blas et al., 2009). Digital storytelling enables computer users to become creative storytellers through the traditional processes of selecting a topic, conducting some research, writing a script, and developing an interesting story (Robin, 2008).

Digital storytelling is usually shorter than a typical oral presentation – between 2 and 10 minutes in length, and it can include computer-based graphics, recorded audio, computer-generated text, video clips, animation, music and most importantly, a narration in the author’s own voice.