Fighting the myths and misconceptions on evil stepmothers : long life learning by means of digital storytelling

Resumo

One of the foremost goals of the European Framework of Reference for Language Teaching is the development of professional competences, which requires substantial modifications in the teaching and learning process, even as early as primary and secondary school. The motivation for the conception of this article is to display a report of strategies derived from an innovative use of Digital Storytelling. Namely, it is suggested here a new use of children’s classic tales in combination with Digital Storytelling as a tool for learning both about language and about life. I will show how Digital Storytelling can help children to be aware of the old values included in the tales and how to bring them up to date. Moreover, this activity could help them to deal with NICTs concerning the five basic competences: listening, writing, reading, speaking and communicating. These are directly involved with the professional world, among other competences related to integrative social traits, for instance, gender equalities and inequalities, and new family structures including the modern role of step-mothers. After some tentative pilot experiences with Digital Storytelling with primary children, I may draw the following conclusions: firstly, that digital storytelling can help and motivate students to carry out their group tasks in primary and secondary education since children are allowed to use a computer and thus achieving positive appraisal in professional competences. Additionally, this activity, which has merged Digital Storytelling, critical thinking and literature, has proved to be a good reason to be given to parents as to why computers could be used for something more constructive than simply playing computer games. In other words, students have learnt by doing.