J00709
Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
Vol. 9, No. 2, 2013, pp. 1-10
Bringing Technology into the Classroom
through Digital Storytelling
Krismiyati
Abstract
that can maximize students’ possible potential to
develop. This also gives them a sense of enjoyment and
Maximizing students’ ability and potential in the
satisfaction as they have their end product that they can
teaching learning process will likely be the goal of a
refer to at any time
teacher. This will give the chance for the students to
employ all the skills and knowledge they have obtained
Keywords: digital storytelling, images, audio,
throughout the learning process. One-way for utilizing
productive skill, technology
this idea is by implementing a particular method called
digital storytelling. This paper tries to investigate the
impact of integrating technology in students’ learning
Introduction
process - especially English - using existing technology.
It also investigates what the students get from the
Technology has been used either as an aid or
as the main means of teaching and learning
ranging from the simplest device, such as using a
CD for listening, to involving students in
interacting with the World Wide Web with the
help of the Internet. The ability to maximize the
existing media in teaching and learning activity
will be a great help for students and teachers. It
starts at elementary level and moves on to higher
education level.
Nowadays, students use technology in
almost every aspect of their life, starting from
using gadgets, social media, and computers to
make use all of those media in their study life.
Normally, in their studies students use technology
and media to support their study, either as
resources for their work or just to explore the
implementation of digital storytelling in their learning.
This employs a survey method to gather the information
from students before the implementation of digital
storytelling. It involves 15 students taking English for
Specific Purposes at the Faculty of Information
Technology,
Satya
Wacana
Christian
University
Salatiga. It employs practical implementation of digital
storytelling to answer the two objectives set previously.
The students involved in the study reported that it was a
good way of implementing all the skills they had
learned during the class. They needed to employ their
reading, speaking, and writing skills to carry out their
project. They mentioned that it improved their
productive
skills
in
English
and
gave
them
opportunities to explore and try new applications in
producing the intended video. This method is a simple
way of integrating technology into classroom activity
1
Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
world and to keep them updated with the latest
information.
This study takes place at Satya Wacana
Christian University, more specificly at the
Faculty of Information and Technology. Students
involved in this study were second year students
taking English for Specific Purposes after their
first course in English language. It is a required
course offered to the Information Technology
students regardless of their major in the faculty.
They have different English learning backgrounds
from their high school majors or their English. As
it happens in Indonesia, students generally take
English for several years before university, at
least from junior high school level; some of them
might have studied English since elementary
school level. There were 15 students involved in
this study. Their existing level was intermediate
level. These students used English passively in
their daily life. They normally read materials
written in English to support their study, because
some teachers might assign them to read research
articles in English in their content course. They
also like to listen to English songs or just browse
the Internet for any information they want which
is sometimes written in English. In addition, they
might use English to play games either on their
desktops or online. They often have these games
with instructions in English; it means that directly
or indirectly they use English passively while
they are playing these games.
Apart from that, as they are Information
Technology students they are familiar with many
forms of technology, either the software or
hardware. They deal with technology almost
everyday. This is the reason why these students
were involved in this study. They will be able to
see and experience the use of technology
integrated in the teaching and learning process in
a way that is different from how they normally
use the technology in their daily life. This study
tries to gauge the impact of integrating technology
in the English language learning process using
what they have mastered so far in terms of
technology. This also investigates what students
gain from the implementation of digital
storytelling in their English language learning.
These objectives will be achieved through the
method applied in this study and will be discussed
in the method section of this study.
Literature Review
This section tries to describe the theory and
literature related to digital storytelling, technology
in the classroom and teaching-learning activities.
Integrating Technology into the Classroom
Instructional software such as drill and
practice, tutorials, and educational games have
been commonly used in the classroom teaching
and learning process since the 1970s (Morrison &
Lowther, 2004). Instructional software is often
viewed as a means for teachers or instructors to
deliver instruction in their teaching and learning
activities in the classroom. The technology used
in the classroom activities does not only refer to
software but sometimes it might refer to simple
technology such as overhead projectors, television,
and computers accompanied by LCD projectors.
These two types of technology have the same
objective in the teaching and learning process;
that is to facilitate the instructional activities or
deliver the instruction itself (Morrison & Lowther,
2004).
Computers that have been used in the
2
Bringing Technology into the Classroom through Digital Storytelling
classroom so far have many advantages for
supporting students learning process either
directly or indirectly. They might help students to
improve their thinking processes. They may also
function as devices aiding students to be much
smarter in their learning process (Norman, 1993).
These facts reveal that computers can play an
important role in students’ learning process. They
help facilitate teaching learning activities and act
as a tool that helps students do their assignments;
for example, drawing maps, recording their drill
practice, writing up their papers etc. In addition, it
helps students view information stored or
processed in the computer in a new and different
way (Morrison & Lowther, 2004).
By using computers in the classroom,
teachers can implement a student-centered
learning process because students are indirectly
led to do a design activity that will maximize their
role as students. They could be actively engaged
in the learning process. A good example of this
view is that students are assigned to search
information on a particular topic; they can use a
database or Internet browsing facility and then
arrange and analyze the information they obtain
into an informative essay. By so doing, students
will be more interested and enthusiastic in
carrying out the assignment, as their role in this
activity is of an active participant. They are the
subjects that have to be active in the process and
that leads to a particular form of results.
Integrating any kind of technology around
the students’ life, either the simplest one or the
most advanced one, might create a different
atmosphere to the students learning activity.
Those students who are normally exposed to a
traditional way of the teaching and learning
process could experience a new way of learning.
The technology may serve as tool to facilitate the
teaching and learning activities, or as a tool to
facilitate them in doing their assignments. In
addition, technology may function as a resource
for the learning process itself such as accessing
information stored in the computer database or
Internet that is accessed through computer.
Productive Skills
In an English classroom setting, the desires
to get all students actively participate in all
planned activities could be found in every
teacher’s mind. Normally, the teacher will try
their best to design and plan activities which
could stimulate and activate students’ skills, either
receptive or productive skills. In order to achieve
this goal, a proper method should be employed.
Harmer maintains that the key to successful
productive skills tasks rely on the way the
teachers organize their response to the students
work (Harmer, 2007) It implies that the factors
determining whether or not a given productive
skill task will succeed depend on the role of the
teacher. It could be achieved by setting a
methodological model that gives clear instruction
on what the students should do and how the
teachers gives feedback in which the students will
be able to know how well they have done in the
given task (Harmer, 2007).
The two productive skills are speaking and
writing. In an English classroom, these productive
skills are very important without neglecting the
receptive skills. In productive skills, students are
encouraged to express their views and opinions
about particular topics (Harmer, 2007). Students
will have to make the communication goal they
set to reach the intended audience, either the
reader or the listener.
As good speakers, students need to be able to
3
Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
convey their communication goal, which is
delivering the message, to their audience
effectively. An effective writer applies the same
principle. Writers, regardless of whatever they
write, have to convey the message to the readers
so that they can absorb well what is being
delivered to them.
may enable students to be readers and writers as
they would be able to envision, understand and
communicate meaning. It gives the chance for
students to engage with the visual and printed text
(Kajder & Swenson, 2004). This reflects students’
skills in reading and writing and will be activated
alongside the fact that they need to employ their
pronunciation skill in narrating their story. The
personal touch is a distinguishing feature in
digital storytelling. Besides, digital storytelling
enables students to create a story which often has
a compelling and interesting narrative with
relatively low and simple technical effort (Botturi,
Bramani & Corbino, 2012). It shows that the
digital storytelling technique is suitable either for
students or children of a more mature age.
According to Young & Kajder (2009) in an
English classroom students will learn best when
they use various kinds of literacy to read and
write in a new way, in this case using digital
video. Moreover they maintain integrating images,
sound and written text, as what is engaged in
digital video story telling will enhance and
accelerate students’ comprehension. It reveals that
the role of images and written text could convey
more meaning to the audience compared to not
using them. Digital storytelling also gives the
opportunity to deepen students’ understanding of
the content they are trying to create. Moreover it
could increase students’ skills in the fields of
visual, sound and oral language, creativity and
thinking (Mader, 2009).
In short, digital storytelling could be seen as
a new method for exploiting and maximizing
students’ potential in sharpening their receptive
and productive skills. When it is used properly, it
could serve as a tool to achieve the set goal in the
classroom setting. In line with that, it could be
considered to be a student-centered approach as it
Digital Storytelling
Leng (2010) defines a digital story as a kind
of short film combining digital images, either
photographic or video, with a piece of narrated
personal writing which is usually accompanied by
musical or spoken soundtracks. It is a different
way of telling a story using technology involving
the personal touch of the maker. Digital
storytelling has been implemented in classroom
activities at different school level, ranging from
elementary school to the higher education level.
Leng (2010) started using digital storytelling
in her classroom, bearing in mind that higher
education assessment focuses more on
competencies development. She also thinks that
by implementing this method, using digital
storytelling, it could build relationships and
integrate students emotionally into the situations
that they might deal with in their daily life.
Another implementation of digital storytelling
has been used from elementary school to high
school since 1999 (Chase, 2010). Digital
storytelling has been used to help teachers to
improve students’ writing skills in their
preparation for state exams. It is quite clear that
digital storytelling could be used as a tool to
maximizing students’ skills in a new way that
most students enjoy as most students nowadays
cannot be separated from technology.
The use of digital images in the classroom
4
Bringing Technology into the Classroom through Digital Storytelling
requires students to actively engage in their
participation and to produce the intended digital
video as their way of implementing their
composition skills in a more interesting way.
through five meetings over five weeks. Each
meeting took 100 minutes. The participants have
to do each stage of the digital storytelling in the
allocated time.
Survey
Method
The survey was done to gauge the situation
and condition of the students before the
implementation of the digital storytelling program.
The reason why a questionnaire was used in this
study was because it was impersonal (Walliman,
2001). There was no difference in the questions
given and it was the same for each participant.
The questions are open-ended ones; therefore it is
entirely up to the participants how they are going
to answer. They can give elaborative answers or
just what they think is adequate. Moreover, the
responses were completely anonymous, so this
reflects the ethical side of collecting data for by
not exposing the identity of the participants.
The questionnaire given to the participants
are as follows:
• Have you ever used technology to help
your learning? How?
• Do you think integrating technology in
your learning process is helpful? Why?
Why not?
• How do you learn English all this time?
This section discusses the elements of the
method of the study such as the objectives,
instruments used for data collection and
participants involved in the study. It also
describes the ethical consideration of this study.
The main objectives of this study are laid out
as follows:
1. What is the impact of integrating
technology in students’ learning process,
especially English, using the existing
technology?
2. What do the students get from the
implementation of digital storytelling in
their learning?
In order to achieve the objectives set, this
study used a survey of the participants of the
study, practical implementation evaluation and
informal interviews and discussion. As mentioned
previously, there were 15 students involved in the
study. Those participants were registered in an
ESP course at the Faculty of Information and
Technology. They had different English language
backgrounds either from their high school major
or their English level. The survey was done before
digital storytelling was implemented and was
followed by the practical implementation. At the
end of the course there was an evaluation of the
implementation through informal interviews and a
discussion involving all the participants and
teacher. The digital storytelling itself was done
Those questions are intended to obtain
information about the students and about
students’ learning situation all this time.
Practical Implementation
The next step in this study was the
implementation of the digital storytelling itself.
Firstly, students were given an explanation and
5
Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
Result
example of digital storytelling and the steps that
they had to undertake. Secondly, they started to
write their storyboard to make the video by
determining the topic they were interested in
initially. Having completed their storyboard,
students started to record their story using
software or applications of their choice. Finally
they showed their video in class and got feedback
from their peers and teacher.
At this stage, student worked individually.
The teacher served as facilitator when the students
needed help such as consulting about topic,
finding appropriate vocabulary and about
language matters. The students were expected to
work independently and explore their creativity.
The last stage of this study was the
undertaking of informal interviews and
discussions. They were done in the class in a
relaxed atmosphere; students tried to express what
they had gained from the implementation of
digital storytelling. They also gave suggestion for
further improvements in the future.
This section describes the results obtained in
the study. It also provides the answer to the
research questions stated in the previous section.
After the survey was administered, which
was intended to gauge the condition of students
before the implementation of the digital
storytelling program, the following results were
revealed.
Most of the students involved in this study
had used technology in their study in an indirect
way. Normally they use a computer with an
Internet connection to browse the information
they might need to support their study. Some
students explained that they used technology by
using the applications found on their computer to
do their assignments such as using the word
processing program, data base, spread sheet and
any other applications to generate programs for
their study like programming language. As all of
the participants are Information Technology
students, they usually use computers in their study
either for simple or complicated use involving any
application support.
Moving to the next question, which tries to
see gauge participants’ opinion on whether or not
integrating technology in their learning is helpful;
these were their responses. Firstly, students
thought that it was very helpful. It gives them the
opportunity to relate to what they always use in
their daily life, computers, to support their
learning process, and it is more interesting to
them. One student said “I cannot be separated
from the computer, so I need to use it in almost
everything I do in my study. Having technology
integrated to my learning process is really helpful
as it is more interesting to me compared to not
using any kind of technology at all “(Student 1,
Ethical Consideration
In conducting this study, all participants
were ensured that their responses would be
anonymous for the sake of confidentiality and no
harm was caused to the participants. Before the
survey was distributed to the participants, it was
explained that they were not forced to participate
in answering the survey given to them. It was
entirely up to students’ whether or not they would
participate. In addition they were assured that
confidentiality was strictly implemented during
the data collection and analysis. In presenting the
analysis and result, there were not any names
mentioned. Besides, they had already signed an
informed consent form to participate in this study.
6
Bringing Technology into the Classroom through Digital Storytelling
translated by the author).
Secondly, using technology in their learning
process is helpful in terms of deepen their skill
either in the technology area itself or in the
subject they are learning. A student expressed that
“using technology in my learning process
encourages me more to explore what is being
taught or assigned by the teacher. Therefore, it is
very useful if the teacher can integrate technology
into the teaching and learning process” (Student 4,
translated by the author).
It is clear that integrating technology into
students’ learning process is helpful for them as it
is more interesting and they are already familiar
with the technology itself. In addition, it will not
cause them any trouble if technology is
implemented in their learning process. In line
with that, students are more motivated in their
learning process as they have the desire to explore
and maximize the use of technology they have
already mastered.
The last question investigated during the
survey is how the students learn English all this
time. Most students mentioned that they learn
English passively, by reading something on the
Internet, trying to understand vocabulary they find
in the games they play and learning with the
teacher in the class. Moreover, they said that they
use English in very small portions, even in an
English classroom. They feel that they are usually
reluctant when they have to activate their
productive skills, either speaking or writing. One
student said, “It is about the culture. When one of
us tries to speak in English, others will see it as a
show off action. To avoid that, we tend to keep it
to ourselves” (Student 10, translated by the
author).
In general, they think that the safest way to
learn English is by reading or listening to material
in English. For productive skills, most students
mention that they rarely practice to sharpen these
skills. Although they have learned English, at
least since they were around 10 years old, they
often use English passively in their daily life.
Discussion
After the survey was conducted, the digital
storytelling was implemented. Firstly students
were given the opportunity to choose the topic for
their digital storytelling project. The topic was
related to the development of technology and their
personal experience with any particular
technology they were dealing with. Having
chosen the topic, they proceeded to the next stage,
which was writing the storyboard. They found
pictures supporting their topic and continued
writing what they were going to say related to the
pictures they had chosen. Figure 1 is an example
Figure 1. An Example of Storyboard produced by
the students
7
Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
of a storyboard students created.
In writing the storyboard, students are
expected to express their ideas in sentences that
will be checked by the teacher and corrected. At
this stage, students will get an idea on how they
should write sentences correctly and know where
to improve.
With the storyboard produced by the
students, they then move to the next stage i.e.
practicing their pronunciation individually with
the help of the teacher. Students had to read their
corrected storyboard version in front of the
teacher and check whether or not they have
pronounced the words correctly. When the teacher
found any mispronunciation then the teacher
provided feedback so that the students would be
able to know the correct pronunciation. It is useful
when they have to record themselves using the
storyboard later on.
After the pronunciation practice was
completed, students proceeded to the next stage,
which was recording or making the video based
on their storyboard. Students were free to choose
what kind of application they were going to use.
Based on the informal interviews and discussion
carried out after the digital storytelling
implementation, students admitted that most of
them had to learn and explore a new application
that they had never used before. They tried to find
out what was the most suitable method for their
digital storytelling. They mentioned that they
used video editing applications such as Windows
moviemaker, cool edit pro, Ulead studio, etc. The
first thing they did was explore how they could
use those applications before they continued to
the recording process. After they were sure how
they were going to use the application, they
started the recording process. They were expected
to produce a 2-4 minutes digital story. It sounds
Figure 2. An Example of how digital storytelling looks
like a very short video or movie, but it took them
at least 3 hours to produce. Their difficulty in
making the video was that they had to re-record
when they made mistakes either in their
pronunciation or intonation. They shared that
most of the time, when they were about to finish
their recording suddenly, they made small
mistakes and they had to do the recording process
from the beginning. In making their video, they
had to put the subtitles or text that they were
reading. It was another job they have to deal with.
They had to explore another feature that enabled
them to put running text or subtitles for their short
video. It had to be synchronized with what they
were reading, in terms of the time. The example
of digital storytelling, which is captured, is in
Figure 2. It is just a print screen of how the digital
storytelling looks.
The informal interview and discussion was
done after the digital storytelling was shown in
the classroom revealed the following findings.
They are as follows:
1. Students felt that they were more
challenged with this project, it demanded
that they explore their ability not only in
terms of language skills but also the
technology skills that they had.
2. It gave more opportunity to practice their
8
Bringing Technology into the Classroom through Digital Storytelling
pronunciation. They set a high standard
for themselves that they had to give their
best because the end product – the videowould last forever for them and their
friends involved in the study who were
going to watch it. In this case, they
voluntarily dedicate more time to deliver
their storyboard orally to produce their
intended video.
3. They felt that doing the digital
storytelling project was more effective
for them to sharpen their productive
skills and they spent more time to
prepare and produce the video. An
interesting comment that they made was
that they admitted that they learned and
prepared more in doing this project than
preparing for a test when they have a test.
4. Students felt that it was an interesting
way of integrating technology into their
language learning. They thought it is
more effective compared to having a
written test. With the digital storytelling
project, they learned and explored a lot.
In addition they prepared themselves two
to three times as much compared to their
test or exam preparation.
spent more time practicing their productive skills,
especially pronunciation and oral competence, to
produce a good video.
Apart from that, students were motivated to
learn and explore new application voluntarily.
They tried to maximize the features they found in
the application so that they could make good
videos that they thought would last forever as
they were going to keep them. The second
objective was to see what students gained from
the implementation of digital storytelling. Despite
the fact that they practiced their productive skills
more, students thought that digital storytelling
was a more effective way of learning compared to
having an examination or test. They mentioned
that when they had an exam or a test, that they did
not do as much preparation compared with the
digital storytelling project. Students had to have
thorough preparation either with technical or non
-technical issues. Otherwise they would not be
able to produce a good digital storytelling video.
They felt that their peers’ assumptions or opinions
on the videos mattered to them. Therefore, they
tried their best to produce the video as best as
they could. Integrating technology into language
learning benefited them a lot.
References
Conclusion
Botturi, Luca, Bramani, Chiara & Corbino, Sara
(2012). Finding Your Voice Through Digital
Storytelling. Tech Trends, 56(3)
Chase, Jennifer Elise (2010). Digital Storytelling
for Success. USA: Professional Media Group
Harmer, Jeremy (2007). The Practice of English
Language Teaching. Edinburgh: Pearson
Education Limited.
Kajder, Sara & Swenson, Janet. A (2004). Digital
To sum up, this study has tried to answer a
set of study objectives. The first objective was to
investigating the impact of integrating technology
in students’ English learning process, using
existing technology. The results were that it gave
a kind of motivation that they would not get if
they did not use technology in the English
learning process. It was observed that students
9
Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
The Author
Images in the Language Arts Classroom.
Learning & Leading with Technology 31 (8)
Leng, Jane (2010). Telling a Digital Story.
Nursing standard may 5: vol 24 no 35
Surrey : RCN Publishing Company.
Mader, Jared (2009). Putting the Teaching Back
in Technology. Learning & Leading with
Technology 47.
Morrison, Garry R & Lowther, Deborah L (2004).
Integrating Computer Technology into the
Classroom 3rd Edition. New Jersey: Pearson
Prentice Hall.
Norman, D. A (1993). Things that Make us
Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the
Age of the Machine. Cambridge: Perseus
Books.
Walliman, Nicholas (2001). Your Research
Project. London: Sage Publication.
Young, Karl & Kajder, Sara (2009). Telling
Stories with Video. Learning & Leading
with Technology.
Krismiyati received her MA from University of
Leeds, United Kingdom. Currently ,she is a
faculty member of Information Technology
Faculty, Satya Wacana Christian University
E-mail: krismi@staff.uksw.edu
Received Date: April, 30, 2013
Revision received Date: September, 25, 2013
Accepted Date: October , 20, 2013
10
Vol. 9, No. 2, 2013, pp. 1-10
Bringing Technology into the Classroom
through Digital Storytelling
Krismiyati
Abstract
that can maximize students’ possible potential to
develop. This also gives them a sense of enjoyment and
Maximizing students’ ability and potential in the
satisfaction as they have their end product that they can
teaching learning process will likely be the goal of a
refer to at any time
teacher. This will give the chance for the students to
employ all the skills and knowledge they have obtained
Keywords: digital storytelling, images, audio,
throughout the learning process. One-way for utilizing
productive skill, technology
this idea is by implementing a particular method called
digital storytelling. This paper tries to investigate the
impact of integrating technology in students’ learning
Introduction
process - especially English - using existing technology.
It also investigates what the students get from the
Technology has been used either as an aid or
as the main means of teaching and learning
ranging from the simplest device, such as using a
CD for listening, to involving students in
interacting with the World Wide Web with the
help of the Internet. The ability to maximize the
existing media in teaching and learning activity
will be a great help for students and teachers. It
starts at elementary level and moves on to higher
education level.
Nowadays, students use technology in
almost every aspect of their life, starting from
using gadgets, social media, and computers to
make use all of those media in their study life.
Normally, in their studies students use technology
and media to support their study, either as
resources for their work or just to explore the
implementation of digital storytelling in their learning.
This employs a survey method to gather the information
from students before the implementation of digital
storytelling. It involves 15 students taking English for
Specific Purposes at the Faculty of Information
Technology,
Satya
Wacana
Christian
University
Salatiga. It employs practical implementation of digital
storytelling to answer the two objectives set previously.
The students involved in the study reported that it was a
good way of implementing all the skills they had
learned during the class. They needed to employ their
reading, speaking, and writing skills to carry out their
project. They mentioned that it improved their
productive
skills
in
English
and
gave
them
opportunities to explore and try new applications in
producing the intended video. This method is a simple
way of integrating technology into classroom activity
1
Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
world and to keep them updated with the latest
information.
This study takes place at Satya Wacana
Christian University, more specificly at the
Faculty of Information and Technology. Students
involved in this study were second year students
taking English for Specific Purposes after their
first course in English language. It is a required
course offered to the Information Technology
students regardless of their major in the faculty.
They have different English learning backgrounds
from their high school majors or their English. As
it happens in Indonesia, students generally take
English for several years before university, at
least from junior high school level; some of them
might have studied English since elementary
school level. There were 15 students involved in
this study. Their existing level was intermediate
level. These students used English passively in
their daily life. They normally read materials
written in English to support their study, because
some teachers might assign them to read research
articles in English in their content course. They
also like to listen to English songs or just browse
the Internet for any information they want which
is sometimes written in English. In addition, they
might use English to play games either on their
desktops or online. They often have these games
with instructions in English; it means that directly
or indirectly they use English passively while
they are playing these games.
Apart from that, as they are Information
Technology students they are familiar with many
forms of technology, either the software or
hardware. They deal with technology almost
everyday. This is the reason why these students
were involved in this study. They will be able to
see and experience the use of technology
integrated in the teaching and learning process in
a way that is different from how they normally
use the technology in their daily life. This study
tries to gauge the impact of integrating technology
in the English language learning process using
what they have mastered so far in terms of
technology. This also investigates what students
gain from the implementation of digital
storytelling in their English language learning.
These objectives will be achieved through the
method applied in this study and will be discussed
in the method section of this study.
Literature Review
This section tries to describe the theory and
literature related to digital storytelling, technology
in the classroom and teaching-learning activities.
Integrating Technology into the Classroom
Instructional software such as drill and
practice, tutorials, and educational games have
been commonly used in the classroom teaching
and learning process since the 1970s (Morrison &
Lowther, 2004). Instructional software is often
viewed as a means for teachers or instructors to
deliver instruction in their teaching and learning
activities in the classroom. The technology used
in the classroom activities does not only refer to
software but sometimes it might refer to simple
technology such as overhead projectors, television,
and computers accompanied by LCD projectors.
These two types of technology have the same
objective in the teaching and learning process;
that is to facilitate the instructional activities or
deliver the instruction itself (Morrison & Lowther,
2004).
Computers that have been used in the
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Bringing Technology into the Classroom through Digital Storytelling
classroom so far have many advantages for
supporting students learning process either
directly or indirectly. They might help students to
improve their thinking processes. They may also
function as devices aiding students to be much
smarter in their learning process (Norman, 1993).
These facts reveal that computers can play an
important role in students’ learning process. They
help facilitate teaching learning activities and act
as a tool that helps students do their assignments;
for example, drawing maps, recording their drill
practice, writing up their papers etc. In addition, it
helps students view information stored or
processed in the computer in a new and different
way (Morrison & Lowther, 2004).
By using computers in the classroom,
teachers can implement a student-centered
learning process because students are indirectly
led to do a design activity that will maximize their
role as students. They could be actively engaged
in the learning process. A good example of this
view is that students are assigned to search
information on a particular topic; they can use a
database or Internet browsing facility and then
arrange and analyze the information they obtain
into an informative essay. By so doing, students
will be more interested and enthusiastic in
carrying out the assignment, as their role in this
activity is of an active participant. They are the
subjects that have to be active in the process and
that leads to a particular form of results.
Integrating any kind of technology around
the students’ life, either the simplest one or the
most advanced one, might create a different
atmosphere to the students learning activity.
Those students who are normally exposed to a
traditional way of the teaching and learning
process could experience a new way of learning.
The technology may serve as tool to facilitate the
teaching and learning activities, or as a tool to
facilitate them in doing their assignments. In
addition, technology may function as a resource
for the learning process itself such as accessing
information stored in the computer database or
Internet that is accessed through computer.
Productive Skills
In an English classroom setting, the desires
to get all students actively participate in all
planned activities could be found in every
teacher’s mind. Normally, the teacher will try
their best to design and plan activities which
could stimulate and activate students’ skills, either
receptive or productive skills. In order to achieve
this goal, a proper method should be employed.
Harmer maintains that the key to successful
productive skills tasks rely on the way the
teachers organize their response to the students
work (Harmer, 2007) It implies that the factors
determining whether or not a given productive
skill task will succeed depend on the role of the
teacher. It could be achieved by setting a
methodological model that gives clear instruction
on what the students should do and how the
teachers gives feedback in which the students will
be able to know how well they have done in the
given task (Harmer, 2007).
The two productive skills are speaking and
writing. In an English classroom, these productive
skills are very important without neglecting the
receptive skills. In productive skills, students are
encouraged to express their views and opinions
about particular topics (Harmer, 2007). Students
will have to make the communication goal they
set to reach the intended audience, either the
reader or the listener.
As good speakers, students need to be able to
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Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
convey their communication goal, which is
delivering the message, to their audience
effectively. An effective writer applies the same
principle. Writers, regardless of whatever they
write, have to convey the message to the readers
so that they can absorb well what is being
delivered to them.
may enable students to be readers and writers as
they would be able to envision, understand and
communicate meaning. It gives the chance for
students to engage with the visual and printed text
(Kajder & Swenson, 2004). This reflects students’
skills in reading and writing and will be activated
alongside the fact that they need to employ their
pronunciation skill in narrating their story. The
personal touch is a distinguishing feature in
digital storytelling. Besides, digital storytelling
enables students to create a story which often has
a compelling and interesting narrative with
relatively low and simple technical effort (Botturi,
Bramani & Corbino, 2012). It shows that the
digital storytelling technique is suitable either for
students or children of a more mature age.
According to Young & Kajder (2009) in an
English classroom students will learn best when
they use various kinds of literacy to read and
write in a new way, in this case using digital
video. Moreover they maintain integrating images,
sound and written text, as what is engaged in
digital video story telling will enhance and
accelerate students’ comprehension. It reveals that
the role of images and written text could convey
more meaning to the audience compared to not
using them. Digital storytelling also gives the
opportunity to deepen students’ understanding of
the content they are trying to create. Moreover it
could increase students’ skills in the fields of
visual, sound and oral language, creativity and
thinking (Mader, 2009).
In short, digital storytelling could be seen as
a new method for exploiting and maximizing
students’ potential in sharpening their receptive
and productive skills. When it is used properly, it
could serve as a tool to achieve the set goal in the
classroom setting. In line with that, it could be
considered to be a student-centered approach as it
Digital Storytelling
Leng (2010) defines a digital story as a kind
of short film combining digital images, either
photographic or video, with a piece of narrated
personal writing which is usually accompanied by
musical or spoken soundtracks. It is a different
way of telling a story using technology involving
the personal touch of the maker. Digital
storytelling has been implemented in classroom
activities at different school level, ranging from
elementary school to the higher education level.
Leng (2010) started using digital storytelling
in her classroom, bearing in mind that higher
education assessment focuses more on
competencies development. She also thinks that
by implementing this method, using digital
storytelling, it could build relationships and
integrate students emotionally into the situations
that they might deal with in their daily life.
Another implementation of digital storytelling
has been used from elementary school to high
school since 1999 (Chase, 2010). Digital
storytelling has been used to help teachers to
improve students’ writing skills in their
preparation for state exams. It is quite clear that
digital storytelling could be used as a tool to
maximizing students’ skills in a new way that
most students enjoy as most students nowadays
cannot be separated from technology.
The use of digital images in the classroom
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Bringing Technology into the Classroom through Digital Storytelling
requires students to actively engage in their
participation and to produce the intended digital
video as their way of implementing their
composition skills in a more interesting way.
through five meetings over five weeks. Each
meeting took 100 minutes. The participants have
to do each stage of the digital storytelling in the
allocated time.
Survey
Method
The survey was done to gauge the situation
and condition of the students before the
implementation of the digital storytelling program.
The reason why a questionnaire was used in this
study was because it was impersonal (Walliman,
2001). There was no difference in the questions
given and it was the same for each participant.
The questions are open-ended ones; therefore it is
entirely up to the participants how they are going
to answer. They can give elaborative answers or
just what they think is adequate. Moreover, the
responses were completely anonymous, so this
reflects the ethical side of collecting data for by
not exposing the identity of the participants.
The questionnaire given to the participants
are as follows:
• Have you ever used technology to help
your learning? How?
• Do you think integrating technology in
your learning process is helpful? Why?
Why not?
• How do you learn English all this time?
This section discusses the elements of the
method of the study such as the objectives,
instruments used for data collection and
participants involved in the study. It also
describes the ethical consideration of this study.
The main objectives of this study are laid out
as follows:
1. What is the impact of integrating
technology in students’ learning process,
especially English, using the existing
technology?
2. What do the students get from the
implementation of digital storytelling in
their learning?
In order to achieve the objectives set, this
study used a survey of the participants of the
study, practical implementation evaluation and
informal interviews and discussion. As mentioned
previously, there were 15 students involved in the
study. Those participants were registered in an
ESP course at the Faculty of Information and
Technology. They had different English language
backgrounds either from their high school major
or their English level. The survey was done before
digital storytelling was implemented and was
followed by the practical implementation. At the
end of the course there was an evaluation of the
implementation through informal interviews and a
discussion involving all the participants and
teacher. The digital storytelling itself was done
Those questions are intended to obtain
information about the students and about
students’ learning situation all this time.
Practical Implementation
The next step in this study was the
implementation of the digital storytelling itself.
Firstly, students were given an explanation and
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Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
Result
example of digital storytelling and the steps that
they had to undertake. Secondly, they started to
write their storyboard to make the video by
determining the topic they were interested in
initially. Having completed their storyboard,
students started to record their story using
software or applications of their choice. Finally
they showed their video in class and got feedback
from their peers and teacher.
At this stage, student worked individually.
The teacher served as facilitator when the students
needed help such as consulting about topic,
finding appropriate vocabulary and about
language matters. The students were expected to
work independently and explore their creativity.
The last stage of this study was the
undertaking of informal interviews and
discussions. They were done in the class in a
relaxed atmosphere; students tried to express what
they had gained from the implementation of
digital storytelling. They also gave suggestion for
further improvements in the future.
This section describes the results obtained in
the study. It also provides the answer to the
research questions stated in the previous section.
After the survey was administered, which
was intended to gauge the condition of students
before the implementation of the digital
storytelling program, the following results were
revealed.
Most of the students involved in this study
had used technology in their study in an indirect
way. Normally they use a computer with an
Internet connection to browse the information
they might need to support their study. Some
students explained that they used technology by
using the applications found on their computer to
do their assignments such as using the word
processing program, data base, spread sheet and
any other applications to generate programs for
their study like programming language. As all of
the participants are Information Technology
students, they usually use computers in their study
either for simple or complicated use involving any
application support.
Moving to the next question, which tries to
see gauge participants’ opinion on whether or not
integrating technology in their learning is helpful;
these were their responses. Firstly, students
thought that it was very helpful. It gives them the
opportunity to relate to what they always use in
their daily life, computers, to support their
learning process, and it is more interesting to
them. One student said “I cannot be separated
from the computer, so I need to use it in almost
everything I do in my study. Having technology
integrated to my learning process is really helpful
as it is more interesting to me compared to not
using any kind of technology at all “(Student 1,
Ethical Consideration
In conducting this study, all participants
were ensured that their responses would be
anonymous for the sake of confidentiality and no
harm was caused to the participants. Before the
survey was distributed to the participants, it was
explained that they were not forced to participate
in answering the survey given to them. It was
entirely up to students’ whether or not they would
participate. In addition they were assured that
confidentiality was strictly implemented during
the data collection and analysis. In presenting the
analysis and result, there were not any names
mentioned. Besides, they had already signed an
informed consent form to participate in this study.
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Bringing Technology into the Classroom through Digital Storytelling
translated by the author).
Secondly, using technology in their learning
process is helpful in terms of deepen their skill
either in the technology area itself or in the
subject they are learning. A student expressed that
“using technology in my learning process
encourages me more to explore what is being
taught or assigned by the teacher. Therefore, it is
very useful if the teacher can integrate technology
into the teaching and learning process” (Student 4,
translated by the author).
It is clear that integrating technology into
students’ learning process is helpful for them as it
is more interesting and they are already familiar
with the technology itself. In addition, it will not
cause them any trouble if technology is
implemented in their learning process. In line
with that, students are more motivated in their
learning process as they have the desire to explore
and maximize the use of technology they have
already mastered.
The last question investigated during the
survey is how the students learn English all this
time. Most students mentioned that they learn
English passively, by reading something on the
Internet, trying to understand vocabulary they find
in the games they play and learning with the
teacher in the class. Moreover, they said that they
use English in very small portions, even in an
English classroom. They feel that they are usually
reluctant when they have to activate their
productive skills, either speaking or writing. One
student said, “It is about the culture. When one of
us tries to speak in English, others will see it as a
show off action. To avoid that, we tend to keep it
to ourselves” (Student 10, translated by the
author).
In general, they think that the safest way to
learn English is by reading or listening to material
in English. For productive skills, most students
mention that they rarely practice to sharpen these
skills. Although they have learned English, at
least since they were around 10 years old, they
often use English passively in their daily life.
Discussion
After the survey was conducted, the digital
storytelling was implemented. Firstly students
were given the opportunity to choose the topic for
their digital storytelling project. The topic was
related to the development of technology and their
personal experience with any particular
technology they were dealing with. Having
chosen the topic, they proceeded to the next stage,
which was writing the storyboard. They found
pictures supporting their topic and continued
writing what they were going to say related to the
pictures they had chosen. Figure 1 is an example
Figure 1. An Example of Storyboard produced by
the students
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Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
of a storyboard students created.
In writing the storyboard, students are
expected to express their ideas in sentences that
will be checked by the teacher and corrected. At
this stage, students will get an idea on how they
should write sentences correctly and know where
to improve.
With the storyboard produced by the
students, they then move to the next stage i.e.
practicing their pronunciation individually with
the help of the teacher. Students had to read their
corrected storyboard version in front of the
teacher and check whether or not they have
pronounced the words correctly. When the teacher
found any mispronunciation then the teacher
provided feedback so that the students would be
able to know the correct pronunciation. It is useful
when they have to record themselves using the
storyboard later on.
After the pronunciation practice was
completed, students proceeded to the next stage,
which was recording or making the video based
on their storyboard. Students were free to choose
what kind of application they were going to use.
Based on the informal interviews and discussion
carried out after the digital storytelling
implementation, students admitted that most of
them had to learn and explore a new application
that they had never used before. They tried to find
out what was the most suitable method for their
digital storytelling. They mentioned that they
used video editing applications such as Windows
moviemaker, cool edit pro, Ulead studio, etc. The
first thing they did was explore how they could
use those applications before they continued to
the recording process. After they were sure how
they were going to use the application, they
started the recording process. They were expected
to produce a 2-4 minutes digital story. It sounds
Figure 2. An Example of how digital storytelling looks
like a very short video or movie, but it took them
at least 3 hours to produce. Their difficulty in
making the video was that they had to re-record
when they made mistakes either in their
pronunciation or intonation. They shared that
most of the time, when they were about to finish
their recording suddenly, they made small
mistakes and they had to do the recording process
from the beginning. In making their video, they
had to put the subtitles or text that they were
reading. It was another job they have to deal with.
They had to explore another feature that enabled
them to put running text or subtitles for their short
video. It had to be synchronized with what they
were reading, in terms of the time. The example
of digital storytelling, which is captured, is in
Figure 2. It is just a print screen of how the digital
storytelling looks.
The informal interview and discussion was
done after the digital storytelling was shown in
the classroom revealed the following findings.
They are as follows:
1. Students felt that they were more
challenged with this project, it demanded
that they explore their ability not only in
terms of language skills but also the
technology skills that they had.
2. It gave more opportunity to practice their
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Bringing Technology into the Classroom through Digital Storytelling
pronunciation. They set a high standard
for themselves that they had to give their
best because the end product – the videowould last forever for them and their
friends involved in the study who were
going to watch it. In this case, they
voluntarily dedicate more time to deliver
their storyboard orally to produce their
intended video.
3. They felt that doing the digital
storytelling project was more effective
for them to sharpen their productive
skills and they spent more time to
prepare and produce the video. An
interesting comment that they made was
that they admitted that they learned and
prepared more in doing this project than
preparing for a test when they have a test.
4. Students felt that it was an interesting
way of integrating technology into their
language learning. They thought it is
more effective compared to having a
written test. With the digital storytelling
project, they learned and explored a lot.
In addition they prepared themselves two
to three times as much compared to their
test or exam preparation.
spent more time practicing their productive skills,
especially pronunciation and oral competence, to
produce a good video.
Apart from that, students were motivated to
learn and explore new application voluntarily.
They tried to maximize the features they found in
the application so that they could make good
videos that they thought would last forever as
they were going to keep them. The second
objective was to see what students gained from
the implementation of digital storytelling. Despite
the fact that they practiced their productive skills
more, students thought that digital storytelling
was a more effective way of learning compared to
having an examination or test. They mentioned
that when they had an exam or a test, that they did
not do as much preparation compared with the
digital storytelling project. Students had to have
thorough preparation either with technical or non
-technical issues. Otherwise they would not be
able to produce a good digital storytelling video.
They felt that their peers’ assumptions or opinions
on the videos mattered to them. Therefore, they
tried their best to produce the video as best as
they could. Integrating technology into language
learning benefited them a lot.
References
Conclusion
Botturi, Luca, Bramani, Chiara & Corbino, Sara
(2012). Finding Your Voice Through Digital
Storytelling. Tech Trends, 56(3)
Chase, Jennifer Elise (2010). Digital Storytelling
for Success. USA: Professional Media Group
Harmer, Jeremy (2007). The Practice of English
Language Teaching. Edinburgh: Pearson
Education Limited.
Kajder, Sara & Swenson, Janet. A (2004). Digital
To sum up, this study has tried to answer a
set of study objectives. The first objective was to
investigating the impact of integrating technology
in students’ English learning process, using
existing technology. The results were that it gave
a kind of motivation that they would not get if
they did not use technology in the English
learning process. It was observed that students
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Asia-Pacific Collaborative education Journal
The Author
Images in the Language Arts Classroom.
Learning & Leading with Technology 31 (8)
Leng, Jane (2010). Telling a Digital Story.
Nursing standard may 5: vol 24 no 35
Surrey : RCN Publishing Company.
Mader, Jared (2009). Putting the Teaching Back
in Technology. Learning & Leading with
Technology 47.
Morrison, Garry R & Lowther, Deborah L (2004).
Integrating Computer Technology into the
Classroom 3rd Edition. New Jersey: Pearson
Prentice Hall.
Norman, D. A (1993). Things that Make us
Smart: Defending Human Attributes in the
Age of the Machine. Cambridge: Perseus
Books.
Walliman, Nicholas (2001). Your Research
Project. London: Sage Publication.
Young, Karl & Kajder, Sara (2009). Telling
Stories with Video. Learning & Leading
with Technology.
Krismiyati received her MA from University of
Leeds, United Kingdom. Currently ,she is a
faculty member of Information Technology
Faculty, Satya Wacana Christian University
E-mail: krismi@staff.uksw.edu
Received Date: April, 30, 2013
Revision received Date: September, 25, 2013
Accepted Date: October , 20, 2013
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