Abstract:

The aim of this case study is to examine pre-service teachers' reflections on their distance school experience during the Covid-19 pandemic through an online digital storytelling workshop. The online digital storytelling workshop was conducted in the last three weeks (between January 4 and 24, 2021) of the fall semester of the 2020-2021 academic year. The participants consist of four final year volunteer pre-service teachers who attend the course of “School Experience” in the department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology in a state university. The researcher was the instructor of the course and also acted as a facilitator during the workshop. The online digital storytelling workshop, originally developed by the Story Center, comprised the several stages: sharing personal narratives in a story circle; writing stories, making voice recordings, collecting visuals, creating the digital story in video format by combining sound and visuals, screening of digital stories in the group, circulating digital stories, and screening of digital stories in the class. These stages were not linear. For example, the stages of digitizing the stories were carried out simultaneously. Digital storytelling functioned both as the research context and as a source of data collection. The online digital storytelling workshop process took place with a combination of asynchronous and synchronous modes of the learning environment. Synchronous online meetings carried out in three different sessions via Zoom. WhatsApp Messenger and Google Drive were used as asynchronous modes. WhatsApp was preferred to facilitate communication in the process of digitizing the stories. In the process of digitizing the stories, WhatsApp was preferred to facilitate communication and Google Drive for storing files. The meetings and correspondences were recorded in this process. The semi-structured focus-group interview was conducted at end of the in-group screening and in-class screening. All data were analyzed through content analysis. As a result, during the digital storytelling process and in their digital stories, pre-service students stated their inferences, principles they acquired, and their understanding regarding the teaching profession by questioning their distance school experiences triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, they want to be teachers who are principled, highly communicative, uses the teaching material effectively, are open to improvement, and contributing to the lifelong learning of their students. They also questioned the teacher training they received. At this point, it was noticed that there is a gap between theory and practice. In conclusion, it can be argued that pre-service teachers' self-awareness raised and their professional self-understanding developed for their future careers through the online digital storytelling workshop as a reflective practice.

Keywords:

digital storytelling, workshop, online learning, teacher education, reflective practice, distance education, school experience