Children’s online collaborative storytelling during 2020 COVID-19 home confinement

Digital collaborative storytelling can be supported by an online learning management system like Moodle, encouraging prosocial behaviors and shared representations. This study investigates children’s storytelling and collaborative behaviors during an online storytelling activity throughout the 2020 SARS-CoV-2 home confinement in Spain. From 1st to 5th grade of primary school, one-hundred-sixteen students conducted weekly activities of online storytelling as an extracurricular project of a school in Madrid. Facilitators registered participants’ platform use and collaboration. Stories were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using the Bears Family Story Analysis System. Three categories related to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic were added to the story content analysis. Results indicate that primary students worked collaboratively in an online environment, with some methodology adaptations to 1st and 2nd grade. Story lengths tend to be reduced with age, while cohesion and story structure show stable values in all grades. All stories were balanced in positive and negative contents, especially in characters’ behavior and relationships, while story problems remained at positive solution levels. In addition, the pandemic theme emerges directly or indirectly in only 15% of the stories. Findings indicate the potential of the online collaborative storytelling activities as a distance education tool in promoting collaboration and social interactions.