By Ms Loh, Lecturer, Faculty of Education & Social Science
Acquiring digital skills is one of the ten desired learning outcomes of Sarawak SEGi College’s programmes in our effort to produce highly employable graduates. Our Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Early-Years Education through the University of Greenwich teaches the subject Language and Digital Literacy, which provides an opportunity for the students to acquire digital skills to teach their lessons and to pass on digital skills to their charges.
Our students recently created storybooks using digital tools such as Book Creator, PowerPoint and PowToon and had a storytelling session with preschool children focusing on teaching English. Storytelling is a traditional approach, but enhanced with digital tools, this session became an opportunity for the children to incorporate their voices by recording their voices and adding their content to their teachers’ stories.
All the children involved could participate, with those more able to write, role-play the main characters, and narrate the stories. Others drew, read minor characters’ parts, choral-spoke, and chanted. The student-teachers reported that the children were enchanted and quickly mastered what needed to be done. As a follow-up, these children collaborated and created their own stories. All the work was shared with their parents.
This is in sync with early-childhood education as children develop a sense of initiative and creativity during their early years. They experiment with various media and creative movements to create and communicate. Hence, digital technologies provide additional outlets to demonstrate their creativity and learning. This is the future of the early-year education world, and future preschool teachers have to get onto this digital bandwagon or risk being left behind.
Link to the digital story by Sia Joon Eng, BAEYE student:
https://read.bookcreator.com/OcNmpbjHfAYuPJdqwYloa6munBF3/D_axpHg4TYimFcTHQBHi-A
Link to Joon Eng’s student, Rihanna’s story:
https://read.bookcreator.com/OcNmpbjHfAYuPJdqwYloa6munBF3/2hiZQEZqSf2KswFX774-8w