The Impact of Storytelling on Learning
As with any effective use of storytelling, digital storytelling must not totally rely on digital tools, images, sounds and applications to engage, but must be well organized and designed purposefully with:
- A starting point that provides a "doorway" into a story;
- A main flow or progression that moves the viewer forward; and
- A possible conclusion or debate point from which other stories can unfold or be developed.
The benefit of digital tools is that all of these can be integrated and immediate for the participant. The Research.com article explains:
- "Engagement opportunities. A good digital story allows viewers to interact through a number of engagement opportunities. These opportunities can include sharing information through social media, sharing comments, subscribing to podcasts, and even contributing content.
- "Technical structure and organized content. According to Santos Miran [Santos Miran, V. (2016, February 24). Five elements of a good digital story. mStoner.] a strong technical foundation is essential to a good digital story. Technical tools that can contribute to an effective digital story include a customized content management system, collaboration tools, and an analytics framework for measuring audience behavior.
- "Visual design. Digital stories should encourage easier reading as well. This is achieved through the use of clear space and the careful selection of fonts and type size. A digital story's visual design should also be optimized for various touch-enabled devices, different viewports, and varying download limitations."
While digital tools evolve rapidly, there are several useful tools listed for teachers and students by Med Kharbach (2022). These include:
- StoryboardThat – this storyboard design tool helps to support good design and planning for effective storytelling.
- Canva – this provides already developed templates to use in any story design and development.
- Adobe Spark – useful if you are already familiar with Adobe products.
There are other products listed and explained on the site for comic story development, animated stories and cartoon-style designed stories.
Frequent Mistakes in Using Storytelling in Learning
While we can agree that storytelling is enjoyable and we can share great memories of how we enjoyed stories in our past or how we would like to share stories now in our learning experiences, the assumption is that the stories are created and shared well and effectively. What, then, are the main ways in which stories can be used ineffectively or negatively? Here are several mistakes than can easily be made and should be avoided as follows:
Be culturally appropriate. It is vitally important that any stories used in a learning environment should be inclusive of all learners in the class or group. Every student is different and there may also be clear cultural differences represented in the group. Therefore, words, phrases, examples, images used should not be hurtful or exclusive of any students in the group.
Be age appropriate. Words, images, inferences, or meanings of story characters or actions should be appropriate for the ages of those who will view and engage with the story.