Using Digital Storytelling to Engage Student Learning

Abstract

No one really knows what the first story ever told in human history was, but storytelling is an art that spans many civilizations and cultures, and continues to be a major part of our modern lives. More recently, storytelling has gone digital with advances in technology and connectivity. Educators have also rediscovered how storytelling can be an effective teaching pedagogy for engaged student learning. A digital story can engage students' visual and auditory senses in a way that the written word alone cannot. This article describes such an effort. The Movie-Door-2-Door.com (MD2D) is a digital story spanning 12 episodes. The story revolves around three young business graduates who started their own business and discovered the role of financial information in managing a business along the way. An independent survey by the University's teaching unit showed that the use of such digital stories can be an appropriate pedagogy to help student contextualize accounting and its role in helping management make decisions. The first four episodes of the MD2D digital story are available for viewing at www.research.smu.edu.sg/faculty/MD2D/.

Keywords:

• Digital storytelling
• contextual learning
• computer-based learning
• teaching innovation
• student engagement
• introductory financial accounting course

Notes

A storyboard is defined as ‘a panel or series of panels on which a set of sketches is arranged depicting consecutively the important changes of scene and action in a series of shots (as for a film, television show, or commercial)’ (Merriam Webster Online Dictionary: www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/storyboard).