In the literature, there are interdisciplinary studies revealing that digital storytelling (DST) facilitates the development of interpersonal engagement and communication; enables individuals to understand their life; allows them to have different perspectives; raises awareness; supports authentic, peer and meaningful learning; serves as a tool in teacher education; refers to a pedagogical tool and enhances the skill development of students (Fokides, 2016; Çıralı, &  Usluel, 2015; Gachago, Ivala, Chigona, & Condy, 2015; Stewart, & Gachago, 2016).

Lambert (2010, p.22) reported that the creation of a digital story (DS) enables the storyteller to experience his or her own journey of self-understanding. It is stated that the DSs produced by individuals reflect themselves and their knowledge in regard to the meanings of the things that they have encountered in their life and that sharing such stories with others enriches the reflections of these individuals on meaning schemes, enables them to see themselves through new eyes, and, thus, the activity of DST encourages the process of self-understanding (Garcia, & Rossiter, 2010). Self-understanding refer to “both the understanding one has of one’s ‘self’ at a certain moment in time (product), as well as to the fact that this product results from an ongoing process of making sense of one’s experiences and their impact on the ‘self’” Kelchtermans, 2009). The study by Uitto, Kaunisto, Kelchtermans, & Estola (2016) pointed out how the self-understanding of teachers is reconstructed through interactions in peer groups. It is also stated that stories serve as an opportunity to enable teachers to capture how they have reconstruct their self-understanding. Thus, it would be reasonable to bring forward that the process of self-understanding can be analysed through the use of cases in the context of case-based teaching in teacher education. For instance, Boling (2007) studied the way preservice teachers react to their stories presented video-based cases and the way these experiences of teachers interact with their interpretation and understandings. For that reason, though this study does not use self-understanding as a variable, it indicates that it is possible to use self-understanding as a variable in further studies.

In the literature, it is stated that cases are based on real-life events, situations or problems; serve as a bridge between theory and practice in teacher training, and also the use of cases enables preservice teachers to improve their problem-solving and decision-making skills, awareness of multiple perspectives, habits of reflection, reflective thinking (Merseth, 1996; Özçınar, & Deryakulu, 2011; Perry and Talley, 2001). Further, it is seen that cases are utilized in different forms such as case-stories and video-based cases (Boling, 2007; Hung, Tan, Cheung, & Hu, 2004; Özçınar, & Deryakulu, 2011; Kurtz, Llama, & Savenya, 2004; Perry, & Talley, 2001).  

Although there are some studies indicating that there is a link between DST, self-understanding, cases and case-based teaching in teacher education in the literature, there is no available study involving every three of them. Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate the process of self-understanding of students, teachers and preservice teachers by carrying out digital storytelling workshops with them and to examine the use of these DSs in teacher education. For this purpose, this study seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What do students, preservice teachers and teachers experience in the process of DST?
2. How students, preservice teachers and teachers’ self-understanding is reconstructed in the process of DST?
3. How should these DSs be utilized in teacher education as a teaching and learning material?

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