Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling: Creating Digital Storytelling Contests for K-12 Students and Teachers

Abstract

This paper describes the results of a research study about DISTCO 2008, the first in a series of Digital Storytelling Contests. DISTCO 2008 was designed as a pilot project for the inaugural DISTCO planned for spring 2009. These contests are open to all K-12 students and teachers in San Antonio, Texas and surrounding areas. The project is designed so that students and teachers from different schools may submit original digital stories in for the contest. The competition will be held solely online, and digital stories are required to be submitted using the official contest website (http://www.distco.org). Specifically, this paper will highlight if and how teachers incorporated digital storytelling in the classroom, what they hoped to gain by using digital stories in the classroom, what challenges and successes they faced in the implementation process, whether digital stories helped students and teachers prepare for the standardized state assessment test (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and SkillsTAKS). In terms of the research implications for students, this paper analyzes students’ perspectives on using digital stories in the classroom, the motivating factors using digital stories, and preferred content areas for digital story use.