New Literacies and language learning

47 thoughts on “Digital Storytelling in the Language Art Classroom”

1. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace. Thank you for presenting an introduction to digital storytelling. Honestly, I don’t have much experience about digital storytelling. But from what you have mentioned above, I do think it would be an innovative way of language learning. According to the Bull & Kajder’s study, the use of digital storytelling in class allows students to develop their own stories with the aid of a vast array of digital tools. Compared with the traditional form of storytelling, digital storytelling would be more interesting for students as it allows for multimodal representations, including images, videos, sound, etc. I also believe that their creativity would be largely enhanced in the process. If there is a chance, I would apply this approach to my future teaching. Considering that various technological tools are needed in telling a digital story, I would probably use it as an after-class group project which requires students to finish the task collaboratively.

   • Thanks for your reply, Evelyn! It is true that technical problem may be a little challenging for students at the primary level. Use it in a collaborative project is a good way for them to show their strengths, which helps to build their confidence.

2. Hi, Danella, Lavinia and Grace! Thanks for your great blog about digital storytelling.
   Actually, I think it is a pity that I myself did not have this kind of experience before. After reading your article, I find that digital storytelling provides language learners many affordances. It can not only trigger students’ interesting in learning language, but also practically improve students’ language skills, like writing and speaking skills. Besides, it also provides learners the chance to come into contact with digital technologies, which are quite important in this digital era. As a result, I think I will try to apply it in my future teaching. However, this novel approach has some limitations, too. As you have mentioned in the article, it might be limited by a lack of equipment and class time. In addition, some students might have problems on using digital tools. What’s worse, some learners might tend to focus more on designing and making a fancy and beautiful video instead of writing a good story. Therefore, if I had the chance to apply digital storytelling in class, I would first give a lesson on storytelling (writing/genres), provide instruction to the use of related digital tools, and then assign it as a group task. In the next class, I would choose and present some of them (with students’ agreements) for further illustrating and teaching.

   • Hi Michelle, thank you for your comment. I think digital storytelling is a great way to help language learners keep motivated and interested in learning language, and during the process, they not only improve writing and speaking skills, but also foster other skills, such as getting familiar with the digital technologies. Besides, demonstrating their ideas in an innovative way will also give them confidence in their future learning. I appreciate that you will use this method in your future teaching, and proper instructions for students will facilitate their using of digital storytelling.

3. Hey, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace, your passage reminds me of my own experience on language learning via digital storytelling of Chinese idioms. When I was at the age of kindergarten something, my parents often play the animated cartoons about idiom stories to me, expecting me to learn some phrases and idioms from that. With this lively form of presentation, I was fond in learning Chinese. However, when I began to learn English as a foreign language, I found that compared with digital storytelling, I was more interested in Disney Cartoons, because they are more picturesque than digital storytelling.

   As an English teacher, I suppose that digital storytelling is beneficial to beginners of a new language, seeing that it can attract learners’ interest and motivate learners to involve themselves into the language situation. Therefore, in the classroom of elementary school, digital storytelling is an excellent way to illustrate some language knowledge to students. However, I am not sure whether it is suitable for students in high level such as secondary school students. Anyway, digital storytelling is a teaching activity which teachers can easily control the time and content. I am sure that in my future teaching I will conduct this into my classroom.

   • Hi Laurel, I think you may have a little misunderstanding about digital storytelling. It is more like a tool used to develop students’ speaking and writing ability rather than the way of delivering cultural background or knowledge. Students will play an active role in the digital storytelling since all the thing about story writing, telling and presenting will be finished by themselves. As for the students’ level you referred above, I think students at a higher level should be encouraged to create more complicated stories, such as describing the abstract concept or using different tenses.

   • Hi, Laurel. I think digital storytelling can also be used for advanced learners because it is a good way for them to leverage their linguistic skills.

4. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, Grace. It’s a great blog you post about Bull & Kajder’s study about digital storytelling in language art classroom. I appreciate their strategies of using the multimodal composition approach to teaching students language.
   We all notice that we teachers choose to use digital tools to teach language, there might be some drawbacks like distraction from the technical tools to the language in the leaning process for students. However, in their planning of the lesson they listed seven points to prevent this problem. The point of “the gift of your voice” impressed me most. In this way, students not only focus on the language learning with their voice but also participate for sure in case that sometimes some students won’t join in the class discussion that we would miss their voice. I like this article very much.

   • Hi Elle, your point about “the gift of your voice” inspired me to write the entry of turning Forrest Gump into a digital story. Thanks for the great point. Overall speaking, I think the whole class working on different parts of a story/ reader is a desirable idea for secondary school students, partly because it is hard to find several stories suitable for adaptation (considering their varied lengths and difficulty, etc.), and partly, it would be insightful for them to compare the different renditions that the class comes up with. They can even compare them with the movie version at last to compare their similarities and differences. With a project like this, the students would probably find the story more closely connected with their life.

   • Hi Elle, you have made a good point that students are easily distracted by the technical tools. So it is very important for teachers to give students proper guidance before they compose the digital story. One important aspect of digital storytelling is the writing and communication process, so teachers should encourage students to write the original script by themselves, then discuss and revise the scripts with their partners or classmates. These two steps are almost the same with the traditional storytelling. The different between traditional storytelling and digital storytelling is their modes of presentation, changing from verbal form to the combination of verbal and visual. Perhaps, there should be some questions for listeners to attract their attention to the story, not only the images or the sound in the digital story.

5. Hello Danella, Lavinia, and Grace, thanks for your clear explanation of digital storytelling. I think teachers should find a good story that is worth being turned into a digital one before he/ she launches the task. When it comes to a class of F.3 secondary school students, Forrest Gump can be a suitable choice. I used to teach the simplified reader of Forrest Gump to my F.3 class. Although the plot was very eventful and meaningful, my students were occasionally at a loss, partly due to the weak simplified language, and partly due to the remote culture of the USA to them (I did not show the movie version to my class). As a result, they did not see the significance in scenes about the Vietnam War, Forrest Gump playing American football, catching shrimps to earn big money, getting to the Moon or receiving a medal from President Nixon. Likewise, students sometimes did not empathize much with Forrest Gump, who is mentally handicapped. Thus I believe asking students to form into teams and turn an episode of the story into a digital one would greatly benefit them. Students will have to amplify an aspect of the episode to demonstrate their vision. For example, how they manipulate the size of Forrest Gump (as opposed to the other smaller-sized players) in his penalty kick would be hilarious. At other times, such as during the breakup or reconciliation with his lover Jenny, projecting his “fragile voice” would help students to empathize with the pitfalls of Forrest Gump. Although the task might still be time-consuming, it is worth doing, since it allows students to understand language arts and the media in a more in-depth and 3-dimensional manner.

   • Hi, Camie, thank you for your comment. I agree with you that making students shoot their own digital story can help them have deeper understanding of the original story or text. During the process, students will capitalize on a range of tools to fully understand the original story or the text first, and then they choose a particular point of view as their topic, and organize their own ideas, ask questions, express opinions, and construct narratives for their story. Besides, other items used in their story, such as computer-based images, music, text, and narration also reflect their understanding of the story.

6. Hello Danella, Lavinia, and Grace， from my perspective, storytelling is a very effective way to motivate language learners because they are integrated in the process of editing, dubbing, shooting and even sound effects. But one things needs to pay attention is that this form of language teaching requires a great amount of time. In the environment of mainland China where curriculum is exam oriented, there won’t be much time spared for storytelling activity unless particular teachers have this kind of needs. Also, digital storytelling requires teacher’s ability to fully understand and use those devices so as to teach students. Therefore, as a way to facilitate learning outcomes, storytelling could be used but mainly for first and second year middle/high school students.

   • Hi Julie, thanks for your sharing. It is true that digital storytelling may be difficult to be implemented in Mainland China’s language teaching, but I think it could be treated as an auxiliary course to stimulate students’ interests in language learning. Obviously, if the teacher can design the task well, students can benefit from this form because of its multimodality.

   • Hey Julie, I agree with you that teachers’ guidence has to be paid attention to since digital storytelling is quite time-consuming. Media and information technologies make different learning opportunities available, and we should note both the benefits and disadvantages of it.

7. Hello, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace. Thank you for concluding some steps for us to help us implement digital storytelling in the future classroom. I personally do not have much learning experience related to digital storytelling. However, I find it quite effective if embed it into the language teaching. From the other article I read, Vasudevan, Schultz and Bateman (2010) demonstrate two cases of marginal fifth graders who are able to re-engage in school tasks and construct new identities in school, family and society through embedding the digital storytelling in the school curriculum. From their study, the high poverty rate in the class does not affect much on the implementation since not much high-tech stuff is required. Consequently, I would love to adopt this into my future teaching because this boosts the motivation of not only the good students, but also the marginal ones.

   • Hi, Eva. I am interested in your statement that everyone could benefit from the digital storytelling. I think it is because the nature of this approach. Digital storytelling needs no more than digital devices, story, and the writer. In this sense, everyone could engage with composing their own stories, no matter how well they did in academic performances. Therefore, learning become more equally and no one would be denied, ignored or abandoned.

   • Hi, Eva, I agree what you mentioned about Vasudevan, Schultz and Bateman’s idea of benefiting learners of finding their identity in digital storytelling project, which would truly arouse students’ motivation of exploring language and culture. Another point is that getting students to work on digital storytelling in a group with classmate, it will really enhance their relationship and help them to find the one with shared interest easily. Therefore, I am also willing to adopt this new literacy practice into my future class,

8. Hello Danella, Lavinia, and Grace. Storytelling in a digital way sounds great incorporate different elements into the learning. I think it is more likely to improve students’ overall abilities (reading, speaking, writing and listeng) compared with the traditional learning in class. I think it is good to use this type of approach in view that students’ analytical capability, digital literacy, and additional knowledge of the story content can be improved. But I think teachers’ guidance needs to be increased as well to further promote this digital circulation learning.

   • Hello Doreen, thanks for your comment that teachers play a crucial role in the digital storytelling in the classroom. So they should have some basic knowledge with multimodal software, such as 3D animation software, movie-making software, e.g., iMovie, Moviemaker, and photostory, and 3D game creation/3D world software, etc. And teachers should provide guidance for students to compose the effective multimodal text, encourage students to engage in systematic review of their work, pay attention to how texts work and can be constructed, and make sure that elements and modes adding to the text do help meet their intentions.

   • Hi，Doreen. I agree with you that students need appropriate guidance when they are participating in storytelling. As such, teachers should not only be instructors but also act as facilitator and organizer

9. Hi, Danella, Lavinia and Grace. Thank you for your post. To be honest, I never applied digital storytelling in my previous teaching. But I believe I will try to use it in the future because it is a very interesting way to integrate technology with writing and speaking.

   Just as you said, this practice is constrained by class time and access to technology. In Mainland China, it is common that there are more than forty students in a classroom of senior high school. What’s more, it is impossible to make sure every student gains access to a computer in class. Therefore, taking these conditions into account, I think it is better to have students finish their production of digital stories after class and then share it in class. The topic of the stories can be closely related to what students are learning so that they are able to assess themselves. Due to the limited time in class, students can be divided into different groups and the groups are assigned to different topics. Only one or two groups display their work at the beginning of each class as a warming up activity. The teachers can give some feedback in terms of the application of technology as well as the language used. In this way maybe the practice of digital storytelling can be implemented.

   • Thanks Eric for your great suggestions on how to apply digital storytelling in the language teaching. Besides group division in the classroom you mentioned, I also recommend students finish such a project by forming groups, taking technical problems they may come across into consideration.Because it may be a little difficult for secondary school students. On the other hand, in this way students’ interests can last for the whole process.

10. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace, your post about digital storytelling reminds me an article I read lately. The writer introduces how digital storytelling enable EFL students to develop the necessary language and literacy skills to successfully communicate with other English speakers. (here’s the link to this article)
    http://www.mextesol.net/journal/index.php?page=journal&id_article=1338
    I have to say I never have experience about digital storytelling during my language learning, but I think it is a very interesting form to learn the target language. From the teacher perspective, I would apply this form in secondary education since it needs students’ technology knowledge. Digital storytelling, as one of the forms of multimodal composition, can not only enhance students’ vocabulary, grammar, reading and speaking skills, but also improve students’ critical thinking ability. However, this form need the teacher to pay attention to both the learning context and technological tools, which means the teacher have to spend a lot time in designing the course, otherwise it might lead to the situation that students only focus on the tech thing instead of language learning.

    • Hi Grace, I really agree with you in your point that the teachers should pay a lot attention to designing the course. I f they just assign and leave the students to do the task completely by themselves, then it might become a really confusing and boring task, without giving them the expected improvement.

      Therefore, i think it might be helpful if teachers could make a detailed and also effective pre-, while-, and post-task preparation, having a kind of control over the whole process.

11. Hello, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace, thank you for your detailed introduction about digital storytelling. Well, I have to say I have never experienced or even thought about storytelling when I am learning a second language ( Although I have little experience on other digital literacies, either). But, I do think it is a good way to practice the target language. It can improve not only the language skills but also many communication skills. Also, when they are looking for the images, sounds, they are getting more competent in the mediant tools and communications.
    I agree with Julie that such project is not so effective for learners in Mainland China. But auxiliary course sounds like a good solution in spite of the efficiency of making a digital storytelling in only 1 or 2 classes. If I were a teacher, I may consider using it when I am teaching them writing of story, also, I want to make sure they are not using their familiar “local” applications to search materials. I think the digital tools they use also matters, in a way.

    • Thank you for your comment, Eating. Yes, I also think it may be unrealistic in mainland China, especially in the secondary schools, as English courses are exam-oriented, so students prefer to spend more time on grammar and vocabulary accumulation rather than make a video storytelling. But the affordances of digital storytelling could not be neglected, and with the widespread of quality education in mainland China, it may be possible in some secondary schools.

12. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace. I am sorry I did not have experienced digital storytelling in the learning process. But I would like to have a try if given the chance. Despite the amount of time and work you have it costs you, digital storytelling could be very much inviting and interacting. It embraces creativity in the plot planning, functions as a thought-delivering tool, and invites participations. The audience could also learn from others’ work as well. I think I would use it in my class teaching. For it is new and students are fond of trying something they have never seen before. With the time passing by, I would raise the challenging level of the storytelling and maybe invite them to comment on others’ work. It is a kind of self-reflection and the ability to appreciate would be enhanced.

    • Hi Nicole, thank you for your excellent comment that “It embraces creativity in the plot planning, functions as a thought delivering tool, and invites participations”. I totally agree with your opinion. Students can express their ideas and thoughts by using any artwork, or they can also draw pictures to apply them into the story. Not only words or pictures, they can also add their own voices or their favorite music to the story. They would like to make the best story to share with their classmates and welcome any comments from them, thus make progress through peer interactions.

13. Hi, Danella, Lavinia and Grace, thanks for sharing such an interesting topic.
    Personally speaking, I don’t have any experiences related to digital storytelling in the language learning process. To be honest, digital story telling is indeed a new way of expressing, but I don’t think it is a good way to enhance students’ language abilities since it’s too complicated and time-consuming. Learners are required to acquire a series of computer competences to sequence the images in the video editor and give several special effects, which is demanding for the majority of students. Besides that, the focus is transferred from language learning to digital creation. Despite the disadvantages I mentioned above, there are also several advantages. For example, it allows students to have a good command of digital tools, which may help them to gain practical experiences and improve career prospects. However, I believe its constraints overweight the affordances.

    • Hello, Alice, thanks for your critical comment. It is really challenging and demanding for secondary students, but I think it may be a good way for higher education students to foster their creativity and critical thinking, as well as their digital literacy.

14. Hello Danella, Lavinia, and Grace, thanks for your post about digital storytelling!

    The post reminds me of a task I did in my university which was to produce a short video about a English story we had created by ourselves. Back then, the teachers just assigned the task to us without making a brief introduction about how to carry out the process, or even a proper strategy of shooting videos. Therefore, during the shooting we were in a state of being confused about why we must change a normal handwriting story into a short video form, as a task?
    Consequently, we finished the assignment in a way that is not so engaging and enjoyable, and just submitted it as an course assignment.

    However, after getting familiar with the digital approaches I finally got to understand the goal of that assignment and the reasons why my teacher assigned that to us as English learners.

    Therefore, I think it is essential to the success of applying these digital ways into language teaching that the students are informed of the importance and influences of that approach—what they might gain from it that cannot be acquired in the conventional classroom, even briefly. I think this could help a lot.

    Certainly I would use it as an important approach in my future teaching (if I become a teacher) for students at secondary level or above, and I would really look forward to receiving their feedback about it!

    • Hi Ruby, it is a pity that your teacher did not give you any guidance for your digital storytelling assignment. With your own experience of digital shooting, I think you will provide some strategic guidance for your future students to do their digital storytelling. And your students will benefit a lot from doing it.

15. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace. Thanks for your elaboration. According yo your given definition of digital storytelling, I believe what I have done for the literature adaptation work could be thought as one digital storytelling experience. It was occurred in my undergraduate study. We were required to finish reading one foreign literature book at least and present our reflection on one particular character or plot of the literature thought a short video. To be honest, reading or writing literature review is not really a interesting job. However, when introduced in a multimodal way, it seems better arouse students willingness of engagement. In our last class, all of us were invited to do a presentation in front of the class. I was so amazed by classmates’ creative reflection work and the literature work they introduced really interested me a lot.
    In my future teaching, I would involve one digital storytelling project into my assessment lis as well. As a language learner who has both benefited and enjoyed this type of task, I have to admit that, on the one hand, digital storytelling makes students be more willing to explore the language further. On the other hand, these creative multimodal work will arouse students’ learning interest in a more extensive aspects.

    • Hi, Fiona, thanks for sharing your digital storytelling experience. Through the process, students can act as readers, writers, artists, designers, and directors at the same time, which involve them in the same way as the media outside the classroom.

16. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace，thanks for your interesting post. After reading the definition of digital storytelling, what comes to my mind first is the beginning part of the animation “the croods”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06ih2WzUbpY I think this can be considered as a kind of digital storytelling.
    I would like to use digital storytelling in my class. Firstly, it is a multimodal composition which includes texts, sounds and videos together. Since the way fo writing more relies on digital devices and the nature of writing turns from individual-oriented to social-oriented, these multimodal texts can be more attractive for readers to read. In this information age, students should have the abilities to write in a multimodal way.
    Secondly, this digital storytelling method is a good way to stimulate students’ motivation in English writing. Writing is no longer a dry paper-based work. While students create their own stories, their classmates, teachers and other relatives can all be their audience. With potential audiences, students may have more interest in storytelling. And also, digital storytelling is a good way to train students narrative language skills, during the process they create their works they have to consider the time logic and cohesion between sentences. But digital way is much appealing for students.

    • Hi Lissie, after watching the animated cartoon your shared, I really think it can be presented as an excellent example for students when we introduce digital storytelling. In addition, your opinion about the nature of writing does leave me a deep impression. Indeed, it is necessary for students to be multi-literate and think about what type of texts their readers will prefer. To develop writing skills in a digital way will definitely help to meet this demand.

17. Hi, Danella, Lavinia and Grace. Your post has successfully drawn my attention to the application of digital storytelling in my own teaching as they are so interesting to me. I think for elementary students, teachers can help build up students’ memory by digital storytelling as pictures, songs and action are more effective in keeping memory. For instance, most of us can sing the song we learned in the childhood with the background music. However, rarely can we recite the passage that we were forced to remember in primary school. For middle school students, Students could be grouped up to edit one story that they like within a week and share it with all the other classmates. During this procedure, students should be properly supervised and guided as they maybe distracted by other entertaining elements in the internet. As for high school students, especially Chinese mainland and Hongkong high school students, it is difficult for them to squeeze time on this activity as all of them are busy preparing for the college entrance examinations. So, maybe holding a competition on digital storytelling among those who are interested in this area may be a compromise option. In this way, those who are interested in digital storytelling can get practiced while those who haven’t got to know about it could be inspired.

18. Hi Annie, I am very glad to see you will apply this new form in your future teaching! As you mentioned above, although digital storytelling more like a student-oriented project, teachers’ instruction also plays an important role both in the supervision and explanation of technical tools. Actually, the competition on digital storytelling products has been paid attention to among all level students, which promoted as an appropriate way to reflect new curriculum reform.

19. Hi, Danella, Lavinia and Grace. Thanks for the introduction. This is a very interesting and innovating teaching method. But it is a pity that I haven’t had the experience of digital storytelling. However, it reminds me of the similar activity of our course of Language, literature and culture. The professor encouraged us to adapt a piece of literary work into another form or genre. I remembered one of the teams adopted a short novel and shot a video acting the story out. As a consequence it turned out to be very interesting and special, which attracted all the audience and left us a good impression. Through the acting of the video, I believe both the video makers and the audience benefit from it. The video makers must have been very acquainted with the novel and have a clear interpretation of the novel so that they could provide such a good piece of work. Besides, as the audience, peer work helps to illustrate their understanding of the novel, making it easier for us to comprehend abstract content.

    • Hi, Chi Wei, thank you for sharing the digital storytelling experience with us. As you mentioned that digital story “make it easier for us to comprehend abstract content”. Digital storytelling can be an effective tool for students, as this kind of activity can generate interest, motivation and attention for students in the classroom. Besides, during the process, students research and tell stories in their own way, and they use the library and Internet to research rich, deep content when they analyze and select the wide range of content included in their story. And some of the contents may not be introduced by teachers in the classroom.

20. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace. Thank you for your post. I did not have much experience of using digital videos to learn a language. But I made a short video last semester. It was interesting, but time-consuming an denergy-concuming at th same time. If I used this kind of teaching method in the classroom in the future, I would illustrate the tasks of diffenent groups of students. One group, one theme. There will be a theme that relats to the unit of the week. The group should complete the task before the class. And I the leading part of the unit will be based on the video.

21. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace, thanks for introducing digital storytelling. To be honest, although I have heard of this innovative way in learning, I don’t have much experience about digital storytelling in my learning. But in my undergraduate major, we tried to compose a micro-course in storytelling — that we created a learning situation based on a practical story, then we included the teaching contents into the course of storytelling. In this way, students could be well attracted by the story plots so that they might be more involved in the teaching materials. But I contend that the form of storytelling may be more appropriate for the young or elementary learners. Besides, the storytelling materials will cost teachers great efforts to make and it is not quite easy to apply it in a class, which is not that effective and practical. So I doubt about it sometimes, nevertheless, I am confident to look forward to its improvement which could be more helpful and meaningful in classroom teaching in the future.

    • Hi, Kiki. I also think we should take students’ age into account. How old are they? Are they interested in all kinds of topics? Are the activities appropriate for them? These questions must be considered before we plan a lesson. But digital storytelling is very flexible, in my opinion. The topic and format can be adjusted according to teachers’ as well as students’ needs and wishes. For example, for elementary students, they can tell fairy tales while senior high school students can choose to introduce a city via a video they produce, just like what we did in class this week. So it can be applied to students of various ages as long as the teachers design the lesson very well ahead of time.

22. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace. Thank you for your contribution made to the Bull & Kajder’s study about digital storytelling in language learning classroom. i really appreciate the organization of your summary which i think is clearly and organized.

    Though i do not have related experience in introducing the kind of technique to my language teaching, i do think it may be a beneficial but tough tool in language teaching and learning. Firstly, it could provide students with a relaxing atmosphere to learn especially for young language learners. Then, during the process of making the materail of storytelling, it need teachers to practice their technical skills, which as a result, could improve teachers’ digital techniques though time consuming.

    In my future teaching, i would learn how to use this technique but i would only apply it if the teaching content is appropriate and students’ age and interest woulda also be taken into considerations. As a future English teacher, learning a technique would not bring trouble and how to apply it into proper utilization needs our teaching wisdoms in practical language teaching.

23. Hi, Danella, Lavinia and Grace, thank you for your interesting post. It reminds me of a project we did last semester. We made an autobiography using digital tools like camera and sound recorder, then we edited our digital story with the help of IMOVIE and also added the soundtrack into our autobiography. I think our digital storytelling really in accord with Lambert’s (2003) criterion of an effective digital story.
    In my opinion, digital storytelling in the classroom has its advantages and drawbacks. As for the advantages, firstly, it helps students think deeply and has a further understanding of knowledge. Secondly, student’s engagement will improve because it is a student-oriented work, they will transfer from a passive receiver in conventional reading/writing class to an active producer in such new literacy practices. Thirdly, it gives them access to a creative, authentic context.
    However, digital storytelling also has some drawbacks. For instance, it is a time-consuming work both for teachers and students. Teachers have to make sure that students have enough ability to operate digital tools and equip them with new knowledge. Students should spend time learning and operating. Therefore, it will increase their workload. I think the task should be assigned to upper level students, so I would like to use it if I could teach college students.

24. Hi, Danella, Lavinia, and Grace. Thank you for your sharing.
    I haven’t practiced this digital storytelling before in language learning, but I think that is quite interesting.

    This task-based approach can let students actively participate in, which can develop their four basic language skills, listening, speaking, reading and writing. After they have accomplished their own work, they will feel fulfilled. The positive effect can be a motivation in language learning.

    However, this kind of activity seems a little bit difficult for young learners. Teachers can modify the activity and make it tenable according to the different level of students. For example, they can choose the topic which is close to students life and demonstrate how to use this technology step by step. In that case, the learning effect is better.

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