Promoting Creativity and Critical Thinking Through Digital Storytelling: Perceptions of Undergraduate Students

Abstract

Creativity and critical thinking are important parts of the college experience. Colleges offer courses that aim at helping students to develop creative and critical thinking skills. The current generation of students belongs to the millennial generation. The millennial generation refers to those born between 1981 and 1999. This generation has grown up immersed in technology. The millennials are growing up with the World Wide Web and digital technologies including laptops, cell phones, text messaging, and video games, but do not necessarily develop creative and thinking skills just because of this. To develop creative and critical thinking skills, a digital storytelling course was designed for freshmen in a Midwestern university in the United States. Digital storytelling is the art of combining images, audio, and sometimes video to tell a story (Frazel, Digital storytelling guide for educators, International Society for Technology in Education, Washington, DC, 2010). Research shows digital storytelling improves engagement, critical thinking, and creativity. This research reports on experiences in a transition course designed to help freshmen develop critical and creative thinking skills, transition to college life, and understand college-level work ethics.