Communicative and digital competences promoted in rural schools with digital storytelling

Abstract

Digital storytelling (DST) is a narrative innovative practice that combines several languages and promotes literacy with digital tools. This research comes from CINEMA project, carried out in the framework of collaboration agreement between the Department of Education and the University of Oviedo in the year academic year 2014/2015. The paper analyses the development of communicative and digital competences in 282 students in multi-grade classrooms of rural schools, by means of a tool created ad hoc, with 15 indicators. Regarding communicative competence, the results reveal that preschool girls stand out in expression (vocabulary and pronunciation) and understanding of space and temporal notions, show more interest and participate more in the collaborative creation of the story. In Primary Education, all of them progress qualitatively, especially the older children, when writing for DST (vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, verb tenses), creating a screenplay with coherent characters and settings, and explaining the purpose of their story. Regarding digital competence, preschool girls are better than their male classmates in using technological media. Besides, in the latest stages of Primary Education digital competence is more fostered, due to the ongoing complexity of the tools used to create the DST. In conclusion, DST creation fosters expression and communication abilities in schoolchildren.