DIGITAL STORYTELLING FOR TEACHING ROMANIAN FOR ACADEMIC PURPOSES - AN OPTIMAL METHOD FOR DEVELOPING EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS?

Abstract

The term "digital stories" describes a simple creative process through which people with relatively little computer experience come to tell a personal story or collect one from the field in a 2-3 minute video. In recent years, their use in higher education has been related to meaningful technology integration for increasing student engagement and developing 21st century employability skills, integration of new and old literacies, social and collaborative learning, and constructing new understandings of contexts in the process of theorizing personal experiences. The study continues the authors’ previous research by proposing a method of embedding employability skills in the curriculum of Romanian for Academic Purposes to first year undergraduates studying sociology at Babes-Bolyai University. A research scenario is provided for a complex investigation of the ways teaching methodology can help digitally native students integrate 21st century skills with view to their transition from secondary to higher education and further, into the job market. Formative and summative assessments cover digital, media, communication, and collaboration competencies in relation to the processes and final product. A quantitative analysis is performed on data collected from project pages hosted by the e-learning platform logs (wiki) and compared with learning outcomes. Additionally, a selection of relevant case studies is described to illustrate findings and the potential of this instrument. The results are expected to bring further evidence of the benefits and challenges of new teaching practices within Web 2.0 based learning settings and of their significant role in the development of a wide array of skills needed in the academic and work environments.