Development of students' digital literacy skills through digital storytelling with mobile devices

Developing digital literacy skills is essential for 21st century learning, working and living. Emerging mobile technologies provide affordances that can be leveraged to advance these skills in a school educational setting. Digital literacy in the context of this paper encompasses media literacy, visual literacy, technology tools literacy and traditional literacy. This paper reports on a project designed to evaluate the development of digital literacy skills through digital storytelling with mobile technology tools (iPads and relevant apps). This approach involves primary school students conducting research, collecting and analysing data, and presenting their findings in the format of a digital story. The participating students planned, developed and presented their digital stories in a way that showcased their research skills, designs thinking and digital literacy skills. Results suggested that digital storytelling with mobile technologies contributes to the development of students' digital literacy skills by enabling them to (a) access information at anytime and anywhere, (b) test their assumptions and reflect on their thinking, (c) represent and share their ideas and solutions to problems, and (d) receive feedback from peers and teachers.