A story can take many shapes and forms. In this course, we will explore a few of these forms under the umbrella of digital storytelling. We will explore various tools, technologies, and apps for creating stories. If you have never created a digital story or have little experience with digital storytelling, you are not alone. In a previous course I taught 280 teachers from 80 different countries, 62% of them said they had never had their learners create digital stories, even though over 80% had access to technology (Terrell, 2012).

Educators now have 100s of fantastic free online tools to help their students create and learn through digital storytelling. Many of these online tools have free apps available on Apple devices (IOS) and Android devices. Through digital storytelling we motivate our learners to apply, contextualize, visualize, and personalize the knowledge they learn.

We have the opportunity to provide learners with access to various digital tools to craft and publish their stories. Digital tools enable students to tell their stories with images, audio, moving text, dynamic backgrounds, props, characters, and other multimedia. We will explore various applications and web tools that motivate learners to share their stories as comics, storybooks, videos, slideshows, and more. We will learn as our learners do by creating stories with the tools and sharing our stories with our peers.

Throughout the course, we will also explore the most effective ways to help our students learn about digital citizenship and literacy. We will also undergo the stages of a digital storytelling project from brainstorming to assessment. 

Last but not least, through this course we will practice the foll0wing competences of the Common Framework for Digital Competence of Teachers:

1.2 Evaluating information.

2.4 Collaborating through digital channels.

3.3 Copyright and Licences.

4.2 Protecting data and digital identity.

5.3 Innovating and creatively using technology.