This is me: children teaching us about themselves through Digital Storytelling.
Kervin, Lisa ; Mantei, Jessica
Connecting digital stories with oral language
It is well established that oral language is closely connected not
only with the acquisition of reading and writing but also to successful
transition to school and future literacy success. Richgels (2004) argues
that the number of words a young child controls in their vocabulary is a
sign not only of the 'health' of their linguistic ability but
also of their capacity to apply language flexibly and for a range of
purposes. For teachers in the early years of primary school, an
understanding of the ways students use language is crucial to the design
of subsequent learning experiences as they work to develop skills across
the literacy modes.
The first weeks of school require teachers to get to know their
students as quickly as possible and to engage them with meaningful
learning experiences from the start. Often teachers receive information
from parents and preschools about the students who have arrived in their
classrooms, but it is infrequent that the voices of the children are
heard in these transition conversations. Dockett and Perry (2001) argue
that children know much about themselves and how they learn and that
they are often keen to be included in meaningful communication about
their learning. However, time to listen to children, to really listen to
the ways they orally construct and convey meaning can be hard to find
for busy teachers in even busier classrooms.
As teachers who have taught Kindergarten we have experienced the
challenges of getting to know children quickly and having opportunity to
hear all children in our class talk for extended periods of time. We
believe digital storytelling is one way to create this opportunity to
hear and examine individual children's oral language and to better
understand their learning preferences and strengths. Digital stories
provide teachers with extended oral language samples that can reveal not
only important information about a child's language development,
but also about their learning styles, interests and strengths. For young
children, the creation of a digital story empowers them as creators of
text and as narrators of their own stories, free from the challenges of
constructing print texts (like spelling and syntax).
A digital story is a multimodal text created with a digital camera
and computer that combines photos and voice (and sometimes other
elements such as movement or sound effects) to share the author's
'story' (ACMI, 2005; Lowenthal, 2009). Generally the creator
of a digital story selects between 10 and 15 images, composes a 250 word
script and creates a digital story between 2 and 4 minutes in length.
Such stories are usually personal in nature and aim to succinctly share
the unique perspectives of the author.
So, what did we do?
For the purposes of the TIM project, where we worked with very
young children we adopted the following framework:
10 photos An oral script 2-3 minutes
We visited a community based early childhood centre in the
Illawarra region of New South Wales to work with those children who were
making the transition to primary school the next year. Throughout these
visits, we worked with 27 children as we helped them to make a digital
story. To do this, each child:
* Photographed up to 10 events and/or activities they like to do in
the centre. One of us accompanied as they did this and in doing so
scaffolded their talk about the subject of their photograph
* Talked with us about each photograph as we looked at them on the
computer--why they took it, what happens in that location, any special
memories. This conversation built upon the scaffolded experience of
taking the photographs and was recorded.
* Worked with us to then edit the images and the audio on a
computer to create a multimedia presentation (a digital story).
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
To illustrate this process and share our insights into one of these
children, we now turn to a focus on Zoe.
Zoe was a four year old girl who was making the transition to
Kindergarten the following year. While she was described as
'quiet', her educators also indicated she was 'easy
going' and 'chatty, once you got her going'. Zoe appeared
to enjoy the opportunity to lead us around her setting as she identified
places and activities she'd like to photograph. Zoe was offered the
camera so she could take her own pictures, however, she decided that she
would like to be in the photographs and asked us to take them instead.
The images that Zoe selected and a transcript of her recorded
annotations are included below.
Zoe's digital story is 2 minutes and thirty six seconds long.
She used ten images and spoke to each for an average of sixteen seconds.
Her narration is 308 words.
Zoe began the process by taking us into the outside environment.
She immediately expressed her frustration that the trampoline
wasn't out, and she would be unable to include it. Interestingly,
she added this information to her annotation to the introductory slide.
She was able to quickly identify places that she liked to be and talked
with apparent ease about the location, making frequent connections back
to her parents and home context.
After selecting six consecutive image locations outside, we
encouraged her to think about the inside environment and things she
liked to do there. Interestingly one of the next four images featured
the yabbie--an example of the outside environment brought inside.
Play was a significant feature of Zoe's interactions in this
experience. Taking her photographs proved to be time consuming as she
needed to engage with each of the experiences before moving to the next.
She took opportunity to role play driving a car as she then connected
her play to her father's driving. Zoe also demonstrated her
awareness of the cooking process and re-enacted this in three of the
images.
Zoe demonstrated understanding of literate practices. She was able
to locate a book with recipes in it and describe the purpose of this
genre. She also chose to work with the day of the week (Friday) as she
contributed to the communal 'Day of the Week' illustration.
Zoe viewed two previously constructed digital stories and
demonstrated awareness of the genre and its associated expectations.
However, she was initially somewhat hesitant about the process of
recording her annotations. She carefully watched the demonstration on
how to record and recorded her first annotation in a very quiet voice
(notably different to the voice we'd heard in the photographing
interactions). After this first recording, it was played back to Zoe
with the laptop computer held close to her ear to enable her to actually
hear what she had said! Zoe agreed it wasn't loud enough and the
annotation was re-recorded. As the process continued, Zoe's
confidence increased and she became more comfortable with the process.
At one point she stated: 'I actually got a really good
story!'.
In her recorded annotations, Zoe demonstrated some awareness of the
process she had engaged with. For example, during her description of the
image portraying plants in the garden, she entertained us with the
description of butterfly that had escaped the photograph. Although Zoe
talked a lot about what she was actually doing in the photos as they
were being taken, she interestingly referred to stories from home, and
about her mum and dad for the recorded narration of nearly every photo.
What can we take from this experience?
Upon reflection, Zoe has taught us about the process of creating
the digital story, the product itself and the ways that the technology
supported her learning.
Process
As with the creation of any text, the stages of planning, drafting,
reviewing, creating and finally sharing the digital story each presented
different demands and offered numerous opportunities for learning.
Within the parameters and expectations we established for the children
and their digital texts, they were free to make choices and direct their
own paths to achieving the goal. For example, they were expected to take
the lead in: identifying 10 activities to capture; adopting an approach
to the task; and identifying their own role within the process (for
example, photographer or photographed). Similarly, the children directed
the recording of annotations to accompany their images to meet the
expectation that they connect with the content of the image and explain
to their audience (their teacher) the relevance of the photograph. A
further expectation was clarity of voice, an important feature of oral
language as a performance (Jones, 1996).
As we accompanied the children gathering images we structured the
dialogue associated with these interactions with powerful results. It
allowed the children to further explore their preferences as they
justified and explained their choices. They could experiment with the
language associated with the activity as they drew upon their own
vocabulary. And we could introduce and reinforce more technical language
associated with the experience.
The talk associated with the initial taking of the photograph was a
supportive part of the process. Foremost, the child could recall and
reflect on the discussion when they came to record their narration.
Further, it provided us with intimate knowledge of the subject of the
photograph, allowing us to better support the child through prompts
related to the earlier conversation.
Product
The digital story is the finished product of this process. It
provided the children with a text to be proud of and to disseminate to
important people in their lives. For educators, though, it is something
more. The digital story provides teachers with an extended oral text
from one child. Here, the teacher can listen carefully to the
child's articulation and pronunciation; to their language
structures and vocabulary choices; and to their preferences for
learning. Analysis of the sample can provide teachers with an
understanding of the ways the child makes connections between image and
text, their awareness of audience and the connections they make between
in and out of school learning experiences. A digital story is a work
sample of sustained oral language. It is a valuable tool to inform the
planning of future learning experiences in terms of the content of a
task, the modes of delivery and even such decisions as student grouping.
The digital story provides a tangible oral language work sample
that can be stored for analysis at pertinent times. It can be revisited
alongside more recent texts to consider a child's progress and
provides evidence for assessing and reporting.
Technology
The technology supported the process in a range of ways. Using a
digital camera allowed images to be easily captured and then immediately
reviewed in order to make judgements about their suitability for the
task. This was an important part of the process as the children
attempted to match an envisaged image with the reality on the screen.
For example, Zoe wanted the butterfly to be included in the digital
story and this required more than one photograph to be taken before it
was achieved.
The selected software afforded flexibility in the construction of
the digital story. (In this project we used iMovie; we believe
MovieMaker could produce similar affordances for PC users.) For example,
photos in iMovie could be manipulated to take on the desired sequence. A
further advantage of iMovie was in its capacity to record voice. The
technology enabled the recording and re-recording of narrative until the
author was satisfied that the narrative matched the image and that
together they conveyed the desired meaning.
This opportunity to review and edit each of the components of the
digital story was quite a lengthy part of the process. Authors could
record one or several 'parts' of their stories and then listen
and revise their narratives. However, the result was a final product
that was of high quality and conveyed the author's intended message
succinctly.
The digital story was exported as a Quicktime movie. This enabled
easy sharing and viewing of the story across platforms. In the TIM
project, these stories were shared with teachers and other children in
the preschool setting, with parents and with the children's future
Kindergarten classroom teachers.
To sum up
Digital stories allow children to be creators of multimodal text,
to be authors, to share what they know and have to say. Throughout the
process of constructing a digital story, we have found children are
actively engaged as problem solvers as they make decisions about the
images, think about the annotations they offer for images and co-edit
these texts into one digital story. The power to choose what they want
to photograph and say what they want to say enables children to
demonstrate their creativity while also revealing something of
themselves as learners. Analysis of the stories has given us insight
into the children as critical thinkers. We believe that digital stories
enable the voices of individual children to be captured while also
demanding that we as educators listen. They are able to introduce
themselves, express their learning preferences and give insight into
themselves as people. For educators, this knowledge cannot be ignored as
we consider the ways to best support them.
References
Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) (2005). ACMI presents
Australia's first international digital storytelling conference
[Online]. Available URL: http://www.acmi.net.
au/F1B371E8155B4DCABF144AC777E5D3F5.htm (accessed 29 October 2009).
Dockett, S. & Perry, B. (2001). Starting school: effective
transitions. Early Childhood Research and Practice, 3(2), 1-20.
Jones, P. (Ed.). (1996). Talking to learn. Newtown, Australia:
Primary English Teachers' Association (e:lit).
Lowenthal, P. (2009). Digital storytelling in education: an
emerging institutional technology? In J. Hartley & K. McWilliam
(Eds), Story Circle: Digital storytelling around the world (pp.
252-259). Chichester, UK: WileyBlackwell.
Richgels, D. (2004). Paying attention to language. Reading Research
Quarterly, 39(4), 470-477.
Jessica and Lisa lecture in language and literacy at the University
of Wollongong, NSW. They have worked collaboratively for more than 10
years. Jessica and Lisa would like to acknowledge the support and
generosity of the staff and students at Bulli Children's Centre
where research on the TIM project was conducted.
