Digital StoryVerse: Unlocking Young Voices

Outline

INTRODUCTION & CONTEXT (5 min):
- Present the goals of the session: creating a collaborative digital library where students publish original stories.
- Engage participants with examples of student stories in English and Spanish.
- Quick discussion: attendees share experiences with digital storytelling and interdisciplinary projects.

GOOGLE SITES DEMONSTRATION (10 min):
- Show how to set up a student-accessible digital library, organize stories by author or genre, and manage permissions for school and parent access.
-Audience activity: participants explore a sample Google Sites library and brainstorm potential layouts and categories.

INTEGRATING INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING (10 min):
- Explain how to integrate ESL, Spanish, science, technology, and SEL into student writing projects.
- Audience activity: small group discussion to design prompts or activities that combine subjects while encouraging creativity and student choice.

STUDENT COLLABORATION AND AGENCY (10 min):
- Discuss strategies to foster student ownership, creativity, and peer feedback.
- Audience activity: attendees draft ideas for guiding students in selecting topics, genres, and formats.

REFLECTION & TAKEAWAYS (5 min):
- Share implementation tips, potential challenges, and student outcomes.
- Quick Q&A and interactive reflection: participants consider how to adapt the project to their classrooms.

ENGAGEMENT TACTICS:
- Peer-to-peer interaction via group discussions and idea sharing.
- Device-based exploration of Google Sites.
- Hands-on activities designing prompts, layouts, and collaborative strategies.
- Visual examples of student stories and digital library organization.

Outcomes

After this session, participants will be able to design and implement a collaborative digital library using Google Sites, guiding students to create, organize, and share original stories. They will learn strategies to integrate language arts, ESL, Spanish, science, technology, and SEL into interdisciplinary projects that foster creativity, digital literacy, student ownership, and community engagement.

Supporting research

Liu, Y. (2025). Immersive digital storytelling to understand the new learning ecosystem. SpringerLink. https://slejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40561-025-00398-x

Bryant, P. (2023). Student experience and digital storytelling. PubMed Central. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10068190/

Yang, Y. T. C., & Monti, M. (2022). Digital storytelling as an interdisciplinary project to improve students' English speaking and creative thinking. ERIC. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1353049&

Alismail, H. A. (2015). Integrate digital storytelling in education. ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1082416.pdf

Gupta, A., et al. (2023). Fostering interdisciplinary learning for elementary students through developing interactive digital stories. National Science Foundation. https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10520391-fostering-interdisciplinary-learning-elementary-students-through-developing-interactive-digital-stories

Chapple, H. (2023). Speaking my mind: Voice and agency in digital storytelling. National Council of Teachers of English. https://publicationsncte.org/content/journals/10.58680/ej202332223?crawler=true&mimetype=application%2Fpdf&

West, L., et al. (2022). Exploring empowerment and agency with digital storytelling. Emancipatory Sciences. https://emancipatorysciences.ucsf.edu/eslabblog/exploring-empowerment-and-agency-digital-storytelling

Bouchrika, I. (2025). Digital storytelling: Benefits, examples, tools & tips for 2025. Research.com. https://research.com/education/digital-storytelling

Green, K. E. C. (2022). Lights, camera, research. LOEX Conference. https://commons.emich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=loexconf2021&

Roth, C., et al. (2025). Stories and systems: Educational interactive storytelling to teach media literacy and systemic thinking. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11059