abstract: As digital media practices become readily available in today's classrooms, literacy and literacy instruction are changing in profound ways (Alvermann, 2010). Professional organizations emphasize the importance of integrating new literacies (New London Group, 1996) practices into language-arts instruction (IRA, 2009; NCTE, 2005). As a result, teachers search for effective ways to incorporate the new literacies in an effort to engage students. Therefore, this study was designed to investigate the potential of digital storytelling as participatory media for writing instruction. This case study was conducted during the fall semester of 2012 in one first-grade classroom and one second-grade classroom in the Southwestern United States. The study addressed ten interrelated research questions relating to how primary-grade students performed in relation to the Common Core writing standards, how they were motivated, how they formed a meta- language to talk about their writing, how they developed identities as writers, and how they were influenced by their teachers' philosophies and instructional approaches. Twenty-two first-grade students and 24 second-grade students used the MovieMaker software to create digital stories of personal narratives. Data included field notes, interviews with teachers and students, teacher journals, my own journal, artifacts of teachers' lesson plans, photographs, students' writing samples, and their digital stories. Qualitative data were analyzed by thematic analysis (Patton, 1990) and discourse analysis (Gee, 2011). Writing samples were scored by rubrics based on the Common Core State Standards. The study demonstrated how digital storytelling can be used to; (a) guide teachers in implementing new literacies in primary grades; (b) illustrate digital storytelling as writing; (c) develop students' meta-language to talk about writing; (d) impact students' perceptions as writers; (e) meet Common Core State Standards for writing; (f) improve students' skills as writers; (g) build students' identities as writers; (h) impact academic writing; (i) engage students in the writing process; and (j) illustrate the differences in writing competencies between first- and second-grade students. The study provides suggestions for teachers interested in incorporating digital storytelling in primary-grade classrooms. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2013

The concept of work-life-balance has gained significant attention during the coronavirus pandemic. There are challenges in keeping solid boundaries between Danish female professionals work and private life. There have been previous studies that have demonstrated gendered roles of females that interrupt work and private life. This thesis builds on these qualitative studies. This is done by providing new insights into the challenges experienced by Danish females in balancing their work-life due to varying degrees of media dependencies when exposed to new digital practices (current pandemic). Therefore, the main research question is, “How and why do Danish female professionals experience fluid transitions between professional work and private life, with the increase of new forms of media dependencies?” The study consisted of eight semi-structured interviews with Danish female participants followed by a qualitative approach. Thoroughly employing social design in a mediatization framework, key themes in the experiences of the participants; work-life-balance, flexibility at work, virtual fatigue and self-care practices were extracted. The study also found that there are gendered roles during the coronavirus pandemic, with women shouldering a greater burden due to unpaid labour. The findings of this work provide deeper insights into the challenges females may endure during national lockdowns. It is envisioned that this work will allow for deeper reflections on the usage and consumption of digital media in keeping boundaries between work-private life. This includes Denmark and other countries. /p>