| dc.description.abstract | Digital storytelling is a new, powerful instructional tool for both students and
educators, in which images and audio/written messages are combined with music to
create short videos that inform people about various issues. This study aims to the
development of a framework (rubric) for analyzing pre-service teachers’ (PSTs)
digital stories about urban sustainability. The research took place in the Department of
Primary Education of the University of Western Macedonia, Greece, where 88 PSTs
participated and were organized in groups of three or four people (25 groups in total).
Each group undertook an issue of its preference, related to the urban sustainability,
and, among others, they created in common a digital story aiming to exhibit their
views on the issue under study. For the analysis of digital stories, a new rubric was
developed, focused on six main domains (Meaning, Audience’s interest, Ways of
meaning/communication, Soundtrack, Images/Video, Sustainability) and 21
subdomains. Then, three reviewers independently scored the digital stories using a
four-point scale ranging from 0 (absence of the characteristic) to 3 (full presence of
the characteristic). Results showed that although the majority of digital stories made
their point of view clear from the beginning, most of them where expected to be more
interesting for the audience. Moreover, most of the issues illustrated in digital stories
are relative to societal aspects of urban sustainability and in a lesser extend to
economy and environment. The most usual way of meaning/communication was the
use of images and in the majority of the cases the soundtrack fitted with the story.
Despite the limitations of the research, future researchers could try to improve the
rubric and analyze digital stories focused on the other two aspects of sustainability∙
economy and environment, along with the examination of more technical aspects of
the digital stories (e.g., quality of sound and images, etc.). | en_US |
