Digital storytelling, book trailers and literary competence in initial teacher education

Storytelling and digital skills are core abilities that trainee teachers should be confident in as future educators in primary and secondary classrooms, and therefore both sets of skills should be integrated into formal instruction in initial teacher education courses in higher education. How can technologies and storytelling be combined in the ITE classroom in order to enhance the literary competence and pedagogic insights of our future teachers? What are the pros and possible cons of making a vernacular literacy practice such as digital storytelling central in formal learning? Can the new forms of expression, exploration, cooperation and communication associated with digital storytelling involve relevant areas of learning? This chapter analyses, in the light of these questions, an educational intervention on digital storytelling through the writing of a book 'trailer', designed as an assignment in a module on literary education for the BA in Primary Education at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Catalonia/Spain, academic year 2012-13). The study shows the contribution and possibilities that digital storytelling brings to initial teacher education, and the impact that it has on the development of literary and technological skills of trainee teachers.