In this chapter, the authors discuss how digital storytelling expands traditional storytelling options to serve as an integrative approach to (1) deepen student understanding of social studies content, (2) learn history through multiple perspectives, and (3) seek social justice through civics engagement. Most stories told about our history tend to focus on the dominant narrative which portrays an inaccurate depiction of events and individuals. When students move beyond the “single story” of the dominant narrative to explore multiple perspectives, voices, and historical accounts through counter narratives, they develop essential critical thinking skills to help them not only deepen their understanding of content in social studies but to encourage them to actively engage as democratic citizens seeking social justice for a better world.
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Today’s digital landscape requires the integration of meaningful technology practices in teaching and learning (International Literacy Association, 2009). Therefore, teachers have a responsibility to help students leverage technology to communicate, collaborate, and “take an active role in choosing, achieving, and demonstrating their learning goals'' within and beyond the confines of the classroom (International Society for Technology in Education, 2016).
The digital age continues to expand the ways educators engage students in content area learning. With a shift from the classroom practice of primarily using technology to consume information toward authentic practice of leveraging digital tools to create and produce, digital storytelling has emerged as an engaging, robust way to integrate social studies learning. Literacy skills and processes can be taught in tandem with social studies through digital storytelling. Further, digital literacies can be easily integrated across the content areas rather than being taught in isolation especially given the limited amount of time and opportunity in an already full curriculum. Digital storytelling offers content in a multimodal format inclusive of images, videos, audio, and text (Robin, 2008) to engage the viewer and deepen their content knowledge. The creation of digital stories allows for collaboration, creativity, and can easily be shared far and wide with authentic audiences (Stover & Yearta, 2017; Pavlu, 2020). Additionally, the technological skills gained in creating digital stories can be empowering for students beyond the classroom (Rogers, 2016) as they learn to utilize digital tools to learn, create, and communicate with authentic audiences.
In this chapter, the authors examine how digital storytelling expands traditional storytelling options (Fuhler, 2010) to serve as an integrative approach to enable students to deepen their understanding of social studies content, learn history through multiple perspectives, and seek social justice through civics engagement. Most stories told about history tend to focus on the dominant narrative which portrays an inaccurate depiction of events and individuals. When students move beyond the “single story” (Adichie, 2009) of the dominant narrative to explore multiple perspectives, voices, and historical accounts through counter narratives, they develop essential critical thinking skills to help them not only deepen their understanding of content in social studies but to encourage them to actively engage as democratic citizens seeking social justice for a better world. By sharing threads of stories including their own, their peers, the community, and those who have historically been and currently are marginalized, students can weave a more complete tapestry of the past with the hopes of shaping a more equitable tomorrow.