Using digital storytelling to prepare new teachers for multicultural and digital natives' classrooms.

Abstract

The 21 Century learners are said to be digital natives. They have increased exposure to new technologies such that are more skilled than their teachers in the use of digital technologies. Coincidentally, many classrooms in big cities are also multicultural. The aim of this paper is to analyse how digital storytelling project could help pre-service teachers preparing for classrooms which are both multicultural and digital native. A qualitative study was employed whereby fourteen students who participated in the digital storytelling project were purposively picked to take part in a focus group interviews. According to the pre-service teachers, in this study, digital storytelling project should be integrated in teacher education curriculum to equip new teachers with the skills they need to face the digital native and multicultural classrooms. The project helped the pre-service teachers to understand other peoples’ culture and also enhanced their digital technology skills.