Abstract:

Interactive digital storytelling (IDS) has attracted a great deal of research interest as a method that can be utilized in school education to advance students’ skills and help them develop valuable competencies. It is a multimedia product created with digital tools and realized by organizing multimedia contents in a coherent system, supported by a narrative structure, in order to obtain a story consisting of multiple elements of various formats (video, audio, images, texts, maps, etc.). It is an educational element of primary importance for activating one’s own personal perspective in processing information and reflecting on one’s internal world but also on the ability to work in a group and collaborate, through an intelligent use of technology

INTERACTed Erasmus+ project has been designed to support primary school educators towards integrating IDS to develop their students’ socio-emotional intelligence and empathy. Specifically, the main goal of the project is to employ emotion-driven interactive digital storytelling to support school teachers in their teaching practice to provide playful and engaging socio-emotional learning. The main deliverables of the project include the design of a professional development program for primary education teachers on IDS; a learning toolkit with key tools and pedagogical scenarios on Interactive Digital Narratives; an online game on IDS, co-created by the project partners using design thinking and SCRUM methodologies; and a policy recommendations report for the integration of IDS in school curricula.

In this context, the objective of this paper is twofold. First, we aim to present a conceptual investigation of the concept of IDS and its value for school education. Moreover, we aim to demonstrate how IDS has been implemented in teaching practices and teacher professional development initiatives from a European perspective, after conducting a review of the corresponding literature. The paper finishes with an infographic, which illustrates the school subjects in which IDN is mostly applied in the project consortium countries, as well as the competences IDN aims to develop for every school subject.

The consortium of the INTERACTed project consists of nine partners from six European countries: two schools ("7th primary school of Alexandreia" from Greece and "De Cirkel" from the Netherlands); two education and research organizations ("SkillsUp Training & Research Services" from the Netherlands and "Synthesis" from Cyprus), a non-profit organization, which envisions to inspire future education and ignite positive change in society ("Stimmuli for social change" from Greece); two Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in consulting and information technology ("Pluriversum" from Italy and "Danmar" from Poland"); an independent impact company ("Blenders" from Belgium); and an organization, which aims to tackle societal challenges through tailor-made policy advice ("The Square Dot Team" from Belgium). The project, which is coordinated by "The Square Dot Team", has been funded with support from the European Commission under Key Action 2 (KA2) of the Erasmus+ program for School Education.

Keywords:

Interactive digital storytelling, school education, Erasmus+ project, teaching innovation, international cooperation.