Foster Creativity Through Digital Storytelling - The Final Project Showcase at Saint Columbkille

“This project really illustrates that these students have many, many different kinds of intelligence who ultimately would be successful in life. This project actually validated them and will propel them for success in the future.” - William Gartside, Head of School, St. Columbkille Partnership School.

Educators around the world are working to empower students and engage them in deep, long-lasting learning. The “Digital Storytelling” project illustrates one way educators can accomplish both these goals. The project is a collaboration between Boston College and Saint Columbkille Partnership School—which has a goal of inspiring students to reflect on real-life problems, think about solutions, and develop a sense of meaning and purpose at the same time. The year-end Digital Storytelling capstone program allows the students to freely choose a topic related both to an ongoing social issue and to the curriculum, then plan, produce, and present an original video addressing the issue.

Dr. Deoksoon Kim, the creator and lead researcher for the digital storytelling program, explained the significance of the program:

“The students decide what they want to do, and we provide them with the tools that help them to learn more—by fostering the students’ creativity through digital storytelling about issues of concern to them.”

The project was successful in helping students learn more about the curriculum while working on topics that inspired them. On May 20, 2019, the students of Saint Columbkille presented their final digital stories to students, parents and teachers at an assembly. More than a hundred parents, educators, students and university researchers gathered in the school auditorium to see the amazing projects that the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders had been working on. Three student videos were featured during the ceremony and the other videos were presented to all interested guests in the classrooms. What the visitors saw were creative, well-made videos covering a wide range of topics—ranging from the living conditions of returned veterans to endangered animal species, from the healthcare system of Haiti to education in Sudan. Parents who watched the videos praised their originality and creativity.

"It's exciting - we love seeing them learning new knowledge and having them teach us. The videos were amazing."

"Everyone did an amazing job! I think the Wevideo project is great, giving them the option to research something and really work on putting a presentation together."

- Children sitting on the floor to watch the video presentations -

If you would like to read more about the Digital Storytelling Project, please click on the link down below:

https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/schools/lynch-school/lynch-news/VideoDigitalStorytelling.html