Digital narrations and cooperative learning: a case study

This article lies within studies and researches carried out on a specific narration technique, the digital storytelling (DST) used in school contexts. Digital collaborative narrations as didactical instruments presuppose a narrative-recreational approach to learning. Digital storytelling promotes innovative learning forms obtained with new “media” technologies. Production of new knowledge takes place through the handling and “editing” of multimedia objects (sounds, images, videos) based on a digital sharing storyboard. Digital technologies affect creative processes such as knowledge setting up and production processes. Digital storytelling is a curriculum innovation that integrates technology with language arts and sciences and literacy skills. Digital storytelling allowed students to work as readers, writers, artists and digital moviemakers. This article reports a didactic experience carried out in two Italian schools located in the Apulia region, the case study is part of a larger project named “MediaEvo”, funded from Apulia Regional Authority, that aims to develop a multichannel platform for the edutainment in cultural Heritage. Students have been directly involved in the creation of digital narrations set in Middle Ages. This article shows the process that students used to create their medieval digital stories as well as provides a brief and rationale explanation for how using digital storytelling in classroom. According to a pedagogical perspective based on constructivist theorethical model, students have been involved in an active and participant didactic.