Abstract
Technological developments have brought innovation, transformation, and change into a number of environments. Education settings constitute the basis of these environments. Among the technological developments in educational environments are technology applications that allow individuals to express themselves better, to recognize their own potential, and to develop themselves. The digital storytelling approach, one of such applications, provides students with several opportunities that enable them to use technology as active participant designers in the process of putting forward their creativity and that allow them to create their own original and creative languages. The digital storytelling approach reveals students' creativity as well as provides a multifaceted environment to help students acquire various skills and efficacies such as technology use efficacy, sophisticated literacy skills, multi-cultural viewpoints, critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, and capability of putting different perspectives into practice. In such a multifaceted environment, students inevitably demonstrate their creativity. Effective integration of creative digital storytelling applications into e-learning environments will result in an interactive process since, within the framework of e-learning, digital storytelling helps students to develop a creative, multi-cultural, project-based viewpoint that allows access to rich sources and that has a universal interaction. This chapter discusses how digital storytelling can be connected with creativity, based on e-learning system. The discussion of the chapter serves to determine the reflections of the digital storytelling approach on creativity and to associate digital storytelling with the e-learning-based application process. This chapter focuses on the aim throughout the narrative literature review.
TopBackground
The digital storytelling approach can be used in a number of instructional processes and fields thanks to its multifaceted features. Digital storytelling provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate different, original and creative approaches to restructuring a story with the help of multimedia facilities (visual images, audios, videos, music and so on).
In addition, the digital storytelling approach leads to the use of a student-centered and/or project-based learning strategy in the educational environment, allows students to participate actively in the learning process, and helps create an effective learning environment (Sharda, 2007; Barret, 2006). Digital storytelling provides students with the opportunities to explore, create, and evaluate their ideas both individually and collaboratively (Sharda, 2007).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Multi-Cultural Competency: Competency in learning various cultures, having knowledge about the differences and similarities between cultures and establishing an effective and interactive communication with different cultures.
Creativity: The process of producing new and original ideas.
E-Learning: An education system based on the transfer of the instructional content to the digital environment and on the teaching of that content via this digital environment.
Participatory Design Approach: A design development approach which requires all participants from the target population to field experts to be involved in design processes based on putting forward a product and which requires each participant to have an effective role in the processes of analysis, synthesis, design, development and evaluation.
Creative Process: A process of solving a problem, developing an original idea and putting forward a flexible viewpoint that can be developed.
Digital Storytelling: A reflective process which allows individuals to express their feelings, thoughts and viewpoints and which is enriched with different components such as personal storytelling, interactive storytelling applications, web-based storytelling approaches and digital short films.
Creativity Indicator: All such features as examining and explaining ideas in detail based on the production of new ideas, being open to discovering new ideas and having courage and sensitivity.