Example 1. Collaborative Digital Storytelling with Young Learners

Michelle Clare, a teacher in Spain, provides many good tips and ideas for setting up collaborative storytelling projects with children (2011). She provides several examples of collaborative storytelling projects with children in her article, Collaborating with Kids. The example below illustrates a collaborative class story in which their superhero saves people from a tsunami. Each child drew a picture to contribute to the story and also narrated different parts of the story. Michelle Clare uses Voicethread, one of the best free collaborative tools and IOS app for teachers. This tool allows educators to create accounts for students without e-mail and offers a choice of avatars. Teachers can upload images, documents, and videos that are turned into a multimedia slideshow where learners and others can navigate slides and comment in various ways. Leave voice comments with a mic or by telephone, create text, upload an audio file, leave a comment through a webcam, or choose a colored pen and doodle on the presentation. Many privacy options are available and the project is embeddable.

Screenshot of the Voicethread Class Story with Young Language Learners by Michelle Clare

Learn more about setting up a collaborative story with young learners by viewing Michelle Worgan’s slide presentation, Collaborating with Kids! Setting Up Online Projects for Young Learners and reading her post with detailed information.