The Impact of Digital Storytelling on Grade 10 Students' Digital Literacy in Hong Kong: A Case Study

Digital Literacy (DL) is a necessary skill for people to learn, work, and live in the contemporary society [1, 2], but local secondary school students' DL is declining in Hong Kong [3], potentially due to a pen-and-paper test-driven culture in which little emphasis is placed on digital artefact creation. Aiming to promote DL development without costing obvious additional burdens on teachers and students, this study incorporates Digital Storytelling (DST) into the local English-as-Second-Language (ESL) curriculum through a self-adapted language-technology-integrated model (based on the Learner-Generated Digital Storytelling Framework). Using quantitative pre- and post-tests, Phase 1 of this research project confirmed that DST using the language-technology-integrated model positively influences Grade 10 students' DL. As Phase 2 of the project, this study adopted a qualitative approach in an attempt to understand how the model has brought about impacts on DL. 26 Grade 10 students chosen by purposive sampling participated in a 480-minute DST workshop incorporated into regular English lessons. Impacts of the workshop were mapped onto the DigComp 2.2 DL framework. Subsequent semi-structured one-to-one interviews with 9 students revealed DL improvements attributable to explicit teacher instructions, sufficient room for self-exploration and metacognitive reflections. The research calls for more explorations on the relationship between DST and face-to-face communication and collaboration, and further validation of the language-technologyintegrated model on ESL education.