Contribution of digital storytelling to 7th grade students' creative thinking skills

The aim of this study is to reveal the contribution of digital storytelling to the creative thinking skills of middle school 7th grade students. The study was designed as a mixed method research and the data of the study were obtained from the digital stories created by the students. The obtained data were analyzed and described. The story writing attitudes of the students were examined with the measurements made at the beginning and the end of the implementation process. In addition, the digital storytelling process was thoroughly analyzed with the video recordings made during the process and the student interviews at the end of the process. The research was carried out with seventh grade students in a public school in Uşak in the first semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. In the study, which lasted approximately 19 weeks, students individually created four digital stories through block-based coding. According to the findings obtained from the measurements of the first implemantation and in the last implemantation, it was found that there are developments in fluency, originality, imagination, analytical thinking, different perspective, media elements and content dimensions. Similarly, it was found that there was an increase in the permanence test score average. In terms of story writing attitude, it was found that the scores students got from the attitude scale before and after the implemantation increased but this increase was not statistically significant. On the other hand, the students generally stated that they found digital storytelling activities fun; brainstorming activity before the implemantation enabled thinking, creating a story draft was useful, the storyboard facilitated the digital storytelling process, and they could evaluate the story thanks to the checklist. They also stated that they improved in different perspectives such as analytical thinking, fluency, and originality; multimedia elements made the stories attractive and the story elements were more easily noticed. In addition, it was determined that digital storytelling activities had a positive effect on Turkish lesson, the digital storytelling process was both easy and difficult compared to traditional story writing, and digital storytelling activities were desired in Turkish lessons because it was fun. During the process, student interactions in the classroom with the digital stories developed, and they became more eager to participate in the digital storytelling process. As a result of these findings, some suggestions have been put forward for today's researchers, educators and practitioners regarding the use of block-based coding and digital stories in learning environments and thus an active learning environment can be created.