Unless you have been living under a rock, technology and digital texts have become the staple for our world population. Technology has afforded us the ability to connect not only locally but worldwide and this has had a profound effect on our school programs.  We have shifted from using technology as  a substitute for a typewriter/word-processor to being a fundamental tool that is embedded  throughout all aspects of the learning process. It is for this reason that digital texts must be included in our programs. We need our students to be digitally literate and this will only occur when we use technology collaboratively, by both teachers and students, in producing and consuming information in a way that complements the curriculum (Combes, 2016).  The digital texts that are used or produced, must be for an authentic purpose that is relevant to the user (Mills & Levido, 2011, 89).  This push for authentic purpose can be seen in the Australian Curriculum’s drive to inquiry learning and  2017 Horizon Report’s push for collaborative learning (Adams Becker et al., 2017, p. 20).

What better way than incorporating digital texts than in the form of storytelling, a process that neuroscientists have confirmed helps us internalise the information we are receiving – “illuminating parts of our brains that are only active when we experience something”  (Schwertly, 2014).  By having students not only engaging with digital stories for information, but allowing them to produce them as part of our program, we are incorporating critical thinking skills, building their digital literacy skills and allowing them to produce material that is relevant to their interests through a process of collaboration.

I personally loved the model that was outlined by Mills and Levido (2011) – iPed, as I can see how I could build a class of digital storytellers.  There are so many fantastic tools available for our students to use which I think are worthwhile exploring and using.  Below is a brief outline of a few of my favourites with descriptions:

• SWAY – Microsoft’s way of creating interactive presentations, reports, newsletters and stories
• Newsmaker – a program that lets you become a news reader – reading scripts off tellypromts while filming
• Verse – a program that lets you make interactive videos
• Twine – an interactive non-linear story maker
• Sutori – a program that lets you create an interactive timeline incorporating visual stories
• StoryJumper – currently used in our school to create story books.

Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., Freeman, A., Hall Giesinger, C., & Ananthanarayanan, V. (2017). NMC horizon report: 2017 higher education edition. Retrieved from The New Media Consortium website: http://cdn.nmc.org/media/2017-nmc-horizon-report-he-EN.pdf

Combes, B. (2016). Digital literacy a new flavour of literacy or something different. Synergy, 14(1). Retrieved from https://www.slav.vic.edu.au/synergy/volume-14-number-1-2016/reflections-and-actions/611-digital-literacy-a-new-flavour-of-literacy-or-something-different.html

Mills, K.A., & Levido, A. (2011). iPed: pedagogy for digital text production. The Reading Teacher, 65(1), 80-91, DOI: 10.1598/RT.65.1.11

Schwertly, S. (2014). The Neuroscience of Storytelling. Retrieved from https://www.ethos3.com/2014/10/the-neuroscience-of-storytelling/