An Evaluation of Digital Stories Created for Social Studies Teaching

Abstract

Digital stories are useful tools for combining technology with education, in terms of the preparation stage, practicality, availability and usability as an evaluation instrument.  In this study, digital stories created in a social studies teaching class were evaluated and the opinions of primary school teacher candidates were obtained concerning the digital stories they created. The study group consisted of 35 teacher candidates studying in the 3rd grade of the Primary School Teaching Department, Necatibey Faculty of Education, Balıkesir University. In this study, the case study method was used and both qualitative and quantitative data were also included to further investigate the subject. The Digital Story Evaluation Scale and Semi-structured Interview Form were used for collecting data.  After implementing the Digital Story Evaluation Scale an Individual Performance Grade (IPG) was created to evaluate the individual performances of the teacher candidates. As a result of the data analyses, the difficulties encountered in the digital story creation process were studied after they had been divided into six categories, including the audio record not working simultaneously with the images, not being able to create an ideal scenario, not being able to find an appropriate image for the scenario, audio disconnection during image transition, difficulties in finding background music, and difficulties in using the programme.

Keywords: digital story; social studies teaching; primary school