“Many students admit shamelessly at the beginning of the semester that they “hate” history, often because they found their high school history courses difficult, dry, or as one student described, “lobotomizing.”
The first quote from the article really sums of the core issue with history class. History class are almost always boring lectures that drone on and on well past its welcome. They’re usually taught with a barebones slideshow will the teacher goes on and one repeating facts to the students. Its not how history should be taught, and when students are “learning” this way its now wonder why they hate it like they often do.
“Digital storytelling can take several forms, including web-based stories, hypertexts, podcasts, video clips, or even computer games. These methods use multimedia resources to frame a narrative imagined by the author.”
The second clip explains what digital storytelling is. While the idea itself is very basic, it has huge potential in a history classroom. There are so many resources out there that you can use to boost your history lessons. There are so many videos that you can show in your lessons. There are so many multimedia resources in general teachers can use to boost their lessons. However, history teachers are too reliant on documentaries when it comes to multimedia resources. While documentaries are great resources to use, history teachers seem to use them to get out of teaching for a day, instead of using it in tandem with a lesson.
“Scholars have demonstrated that digital storytelling can be used to help students with special needs or disabilities develop skills beyond the learning outcomes set for the class.”
Finally, the last quote shows another great reason to use digital storytelling. Accessibility is a hugely important aspect of teaching. You want to make sure everything about your lesson and classroom is access able to all your students. Digital storytelling is something that can be made access able to all kinds of students you may have in your classroom, Making sure all of your students can follow and participate in lesson is huge, and is something that should be important to everyone.
