Abstract:

Young children today live in a world of interactive media and they are growing up at ease with digital devices that may still puzzle their parents and grandparents (Berson & Berson 2010; Chiong & Shuler 2010).The most effective use of technology in an early childhood setting involves the application of tools and materials to enhance children’s learning and development, interactions, communication, creativity and collaboration which are considered 21st century skills. The types and uses of technology in early childhood programs have also expanded to include computers, tablets, e-books, digital cameras , electronic toys, multimedia players for music and videos, digital audio recorders, interactive whiteboards, software applications, the Internet, and more. These technologies are increasingly expanding the tools and materials to which young children have access both in their homes and in their classrooms, affecting the ways in which young children interact with the world and with others. Among these Technologies, Digital Storytelling has become a powerful instructional tool for both students and educators. Digital storytelling is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories.

When digital storytelling is used by students, it provides a strong foundation in many different types of literacy, including information literacy, visual literacy, technological literacy, and media literacy. Summarizing the work of several researchers in this field, Brown, Bryan and Brown labeled these multiple skills that are aligned with technology as “Twenty-First Century Literacy” ( Brown, J., Bryan, J., & Brown, T. 2005).

Our Project, ‘My First Digital Book’ is aiming to teach the ‘book creator’ program to 5- year-old kindergarten students to write their own original digital stories on their ipads. The sample consists of 40 children in a private kindergarten. The children will be divided into groups and in the first phase of the study the groups of children will complete a story (same for all groups) using drama and music. Then there will be tutorial sessions for taking pictures and videos, editing, voice recording, making and recording music on ipads. In the second phase of the study using the ‘book creator’ application, the children will design the ending of the story as a group using videos, pictures, sound and music on ipads and create ‘class books’. The study will be an example for developing the experiences of young children on teamwork and story telling by using drama, videos, pictures, sound, music and technology.

Keywords:

Digital story telling, ipad, kindergarten.