Digital Story-Making and the Professional Development of Beginning Teachers

• In Event: Technology and Teacher Professional Development

Abstract

This study explores the experience of two beginning teachers (one preservice and one first year teacher) creating digital stories. We also ask how digital story-making fostered their professional identity development as teachers. We use case study methods and visual grammar analysis, drawing on Unsworth’s systematic functional analysis and Serafini’s ideological perspective, to analyze the digital stories. The results show that the teachers found digital story-making to be a positive experience, an opportunity to express their voices and facilitate reflection as a developing teacher. Both teachers also saw digital storytelling as a way to share with others and receive feedback about their work in a way that benefited the development of their professional identities as teachers.

Authors

• Deoksoon Kim, Boston College

• Kei Yatsu, Boston College

• Yan Li, Boston College

• Hehua Xu, Boston College

• Hubang Chen, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Xinyue Thea He

• Yue Liu, Boston College