Digital storytelling and writing skills

Abstract

Digital storytelling is a resource that is not widely used in the classroom, however, using this resource can have many benefits for students, especially for developing their writing skills. Therefore, the objective of this research was to analyze students' perspectives on digital storytelling and writing skills. Additionally, the study was non-experimental with a quantitative-descriptive level. The participants were 66 students corresponding to the A1 level of the “Centro de Idiomas”, of which 21 were male and 45 were female, aged 18 to 31 years old. Data were collected through a survey with 17 items on a Likert scale and 3 open-ended questions, which was validated through a pilot test and three experts in the field. Finally, through the survey the students' perspectives were analyzed and the results revealed that digital storytelling is an effective tool to develop writing skills. The types of digital storytelling most used by students are educational and social, which also help them develop different types of writing formats. On the other hand, the results showed that the most developed types of writing formats in the classes are expository and descriptive. While the least developed in the classes are personal and comparative. The results further revealed that most of the students preferred the outline and questioning strategies, which allow them to organize their ideas before writing. However, the grouping strategy is not frequently used by students in class.