The Purposes for Using Digital Storytelling
While 34 percent of teacher participants’ main purpose for using digital storytelling is to support their
teaching, 70 percent of the participants’ purpose is to support student learning among their own students.
Twenty-two percent of participants answered the open-ended question which asked about other purposes for
using digital storytelling (see the DS website for Appendix Table 11).
The, response of teachers, especially in the USA and Canada, indicated that the purpose for using digital
storytelling included using DS integrated in a writing program, to enhance pre-service teachers’ reflections on
practice, to improve collaborative activity, to aid in the focus of the class, to learn through student perspectives
more about computer science in general, to engage youth in planning processes (i.e., the instructional design
process), to teach DS as a subject, to provide digital content that pre-service teachers can use in their teaching, as
a tool for students to express themselves, to preserve traditional indigenous knowledge, to increase awareness of
subject matter for decision makers or others of influence, to teach about different cultures and to communicate
with students from different cultures, and even to empower students to change the world.
The student participants’ responses suggested that they use digital storytelling for doing homework, for
making a blog, for telling a story in a unique and creative way, for learning special subjects, for language
learning, or as a course requirement. Among respondents who classified themselves as "researchers," their aims
for using DS were “to share the value of digital narratives across disciplines” and “to integrate DS in education.”
Six of those who indicated they were instructional designers, stated that their aims are to use DS to build a
community including an online community of learners, to develop e-learning materials, and to increase social
presence.
One respondent who was a social media specialist in Canada explained his aim this way: “When giving
workshops to story collectors for my projects to prepare them to find and record stories, as a conference delegate
across disciplines (history, public art, digital storytelling, placemaking, etc) to present our project and convince
people of the power of digital storytelling, as a way of introducing university and high school students to our
project when invited to be part of a class, and, previously as a digital media and social media specialist and
professional writer.” And a respondent from Sweden, described as a project leader in human rights and
democracy, wrote that DS is being used as “As a tool to discuss human rights and democracy and to encourage
young people to be active citizens.”