Obstacles K-12 Teachers Face with Using Digital Storytelling in Their Classrooms

Abstract

This study examines the obstacles K-12 educators across curricula face with integrating digital storytelling (DST) into their classrooms. It includes a literature review that provides a foundation for the value of DST, such as helping students develop literacy, communication, and social skills, increasing their motivation to engage in learning, and strengthening their digital literacy. There is insufficient existing literature to determine how most K-12 educators feel about using DST as a pedagogy and what barriers are hindering them, including new roadblocks that surfaced in 2020 and 2021 as the Covid-19 pandemic changed the educational landscape. For this study, K-12 educators were surveyed to gain a better understanding of the obstacles that hinder them from using DST, and for those who are using it, the impediments they experience. Of the teachers who took the survey, 43.48% had used DST in their classrooms and 56.52% had not. Both groups cited lack of professional development opportunities, lack of access to technology, and time constraints as obstacles. This study makes an original contribution in that it provides additional data about why so many teachers do not use DST in their classrooms and offers strategies for how educators can integrate DST into their lessons.