191 R T The Reading Teacher Vol. 68 Issue 3 pp. 191–199 DOI:10.1002/trtr.1273 © 2014 International Reading Association DIGITAL STORYTELLING REVISITED An Educator’ s Use of an Innovative Literacy Practice Crystal Shelby-Caffey ■ Edwin Úbéda ■ Bethany Jenkins What happens when you take a traditionally trained fifth-grade teacher, furnish her classroom with lots of new technology, and provide training and support? Transformed teaching and learning! I n presenting an accurate representation of what it means to be literate in our world today, one would be remiss if the description did not take into account the need to be well versed in mul- tiple forms of new media. “Being literate no longer only involves being able to read and write. The literate of the twenty-first century must be able to download, upload, rip, burn, chat, save, blog, Skype, IM, and share” (Mullen & Wedwick, 2008, p. 66). Therefore, definitions have broadened to encompass new forms of literacy that incorporate strategies needed for interacting, comprehending, and responding using various information and communication technolo- gies, or ICTs (Lankshear & Knobel, 2011; Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, & Cammack, 2004). This rapidly changing technological environment has impacted educa- tional institutions overall and teaching in particular. The changes are factored into new standards of what it means to be informed, literate global citizens. Participation in new media demands the acquisi- tion and honing of new literacy skills and requires familiarity with the unwritten rules and etiquette for functioning within a given media environment. With the growing popularity of smartphones and the inte- grated capability to contribute to social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Vine, people of all ages routinely “integrate these new media forms into a single narrative, or ‘media collage’, such as a webpage, blog, or digital story” (Ohler, 2009, p. 31). Recently, global social actions have been fueled and reported by average citizens using noth- ing more than cell phones and Twitter accounts. It is imperative that as educators and researchers, we examine the breadth of new literacy practices with an eye toward student engagement and further develop- ment of the strategies needed for full participation in these highly interactive environments. Crystal Shelby-Caffey is an assistant professor at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, USA; e-mail ccaffey@siu.edu. Edwin Ubéda is a graduate student at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois, USA; e-mail eubeda1975@siu.edu. Bethany Jenkins is a fifth-grade teacher at Lewis School, Carbondale, Illinois, USA; e-mail bjenkins@ces95.org.