Leveraging Literacy: Interactive Digital Storytelling With Scratch Programming

• In Event: Poster Session 3
  In Poster Session: Memes, Popular Culture, and Digital Storytelling Across Multiple and Critical Literacies

Abstract

The focus of this paper is to examine how interactive digital storytelling using the programming language Scratch can help develop middle school children’s understanding of a wide range of programming concepts. Building off of previous research focusing on how to leverage the traditional literacy of writing and storytelling as a means to teach programming, which is heralded as a new literacy, this research sought to more closely integrate the variable nature of computer programming so to have students produce their own interactive web-based stories. Results suggest that while middle school students enjoyed the storytelling workshop and framing coding in terms of writing, few had developed the prowess to create full-length interactive storylines by the close of the four months.

Author

• William Quinn Burke, College of Charleston