Digital Storytelling: New Medium In Communicating Knowledge And Information Harryizman bin Harun Universiti Utara Malaysia Sintok, Kedah Malaysia harry@uum.edu.my Norshuhada Shiratuddin Universiti Utara Malaysia Sintok, Kedah Malaysia shuhada@uum.edu.my ABSTRACT Storytelling has been used traditionally around the world to educate informally from generation to generation. With the introduction and inclusion of technology and multimedia, storytelling crosses the boundary from being the informal medium to educate to one of the formal medium to educate people. The term coined for this type of storytelling is digital storytelling and it is gaining popularity nowadays among educators in educating students. This article is a concept article based on portions of literature review from a research that is still ongoing. The main purpose of the article is to inform and educate educators of the potentials of digital storytelling as the new medium in education domain and its power in leaving impact in delivering knowledge and information. It is highly hope that the article would enlighten people generally, and educators specifically of the power of digital storytelling in communicating knowledge and information. Keywords: Digital storytelling, education, multimedia INTRODUCTION Story is an important element in human’s life. According to Freeman (n.d.), story is an entertainment, learning and teaching tool in an effort to communicate, stir emotions and engaging people to read to the end and storytelling, according to Dudley (1997), storytelling is the art of storytellers to achieve the aforementioned purposes. People communicate everyday through stories. Stories are told, heard, and responded to in order to convey and absorb messages or ideas (Grisham, 2006). For generations, stories are utilized as a tool to pass down knowledge and wisdom from parents to children. It started long time ago informally as pictures on stone walls and has much evolved throughout history (Behmer, 2005). Most children remember bedtime stories by their parents or grandparents such as fairytales insinuated with moral values education for a very long time. In this modern day, stories have gone through a major make over. From being an informal tool to educate, it has become a formal medium to educate students in learning institutes. Moreover, with the intervention of new technology and the appearance of multimedia with its rich media elements such as audio, video, animation, and graphic, stories have diversified from its traditional root without leaving its genuine purpose which is to educate knowledge and wisdom. Amalgamated with technology, storytelling has taken a new form with deeper impact in communicating ideas and knowledge sharing. The popular term coined for it is digital storytelling. This article starts with the definition and a little bit of history of digital storytelling. It progresses to the explanation of digital storytelling in education and its contributions in a classroom. Lastly, the article discusses a few of application of digital storytelling in education area. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by UUM Repository