The King Island Digital Stories (KIDS) Project: Telling Stories for Tomorrow’s Learning

Abstract : The King Island Digital Stories (KIDS) project was an initiative to extend children’s literacies through developing digital stories. The project was conducted over a ten-week term with 21 children in a Year 4/5 class. An ethnographic approach was used where the research team worked collaboratively in the classroom to scaffold individual children to represent their story ideas. The children were told that their stories needed to be about King Island and in their voice (first person) but otherwise, the stories could be about any aspect. The project was slow to start but a weekly sharing session helped the children to conceptualise and develop their stories. As the resources began to emerge, it was evident that the children were engaging effectively with the process of digital storytelling and developing their literacies, especially digital literacies. The resulting digital stories were diverse but collectively they communicated a tapestry of life on the island through the children’s eyes.