Digitalization is transforming our societal reality, which has profound implications for learning in schools. The integration of digital devices into the classroom enables the realization of novel and innovative didactic-methodological settings and task formats (Totter et al., 2024; Brunsmeier & Kolb, 2018), facilitating the gradual acquisition of digital skills that are considered central to 21st-century competencies (El-Hamamsy et al., 2023). One such innovative task format is digital storytelling, where learners create multimedia stories by combining various representational forms. In primary school education, this type of multimedia creation task using tablets not only provides students with literary and language-related learning opportunities but also allows them to acquire essential media-related competencies. Furthermore, it is a task format with the potential to foster creativity.

When learners engage with such a task format, the outcomes take the form of multimedia products as digital stories. These digital stories differ significantly from outcomes in the traditionally analogue early foreign language teaching of primary schools. This is evident in the encouragement of free language production that goes beyond the reproduction of a narrowly limited vocabulary within predefined syntactic patterns (Dausend & Nickel, 2017). At the same time, working with a digital device enables content to be presented not only through spoken or written language but also through static or moving images, as well as combinations of these modes of digital representation forms. In this context, tablets are particularly well suited as digital devices. The inclusion of multiple hardware components (e.g., camera) directly within the device and the ease of mobile deployment make the tablet an ideal device for use in primary school education (Bastian & Kolb, 2020). Consequently, such work products not only support subject-specific competency goals but also provide insights into digital skill development.

Digital storytelling with tablets is uniquely effective in encouraging learners to realize their own ideas during task completion. It gives students opportunities for individual expression and enables them to pursue learning paths that educators can assess and evaluate beyond the scope of correct answers, aligning well with creativity education principles (Soh, 2017). Creativity, in this context, can be described in its simplest form as an original and simultaneously useful idea that must then be purposefully elaborated and made communicable (Runco, 2004). In a digital story, creative work processes can manifest through innovative and unconventional solutions or combinations, both at the linguistic-literary and multimedia levels.

Digital media thus have the potential to transform learning and teaching cultures through innovative task formats. As previously discussed, the outcomes generated in digitally supported instruction differ significantly from those in traditional analogue teaching. However, no research examining the extent to which learners utilize the media and creative potential of such innovative tasks currently exists. This project addresses the question of whether the assumed potential of these tasks, in terms of various digital representation forms and creative design possibilities, becomes visible in the students' outcomes (digital stories). Against this backdrop, the project develops analytical criteria to assess and evaluate students’ creative products. Developing and testing such analytical frameworks is essential to make evidence-based judgments about the potential of digitally supported task formats and to identify key levers for improving these teaching and learning settings. The central research questions are therefore as follows:

-       How can a teaching and learning setting in early foreign language education at the primary school level be designed to encourage students to create multimedia products in the form of digital stories? (Research Question 1)

-       How can these digital stories be analyzed and evaluated regarding media and creative design? (Research Question 2)

The StoryTimE project, "Digital Storytelling with Tablets in English Language Teaching at Primary Schools," addresses these research questions. For this purpose, a teaching unit was developed for primary school English lessons, in which students are encouraged to create their own multimedia fairy tale in the second language (L2) using tablets (a). The unit was implemented in German primary schools (b) (Research Question 1). The digital products created by the students were subsequently collected, and an analytical framework was developed, with a focus on media education and creativity education perspectives for the presentation (c) (Research Question 2). The following outlines the methodological steps. a) A teaching unit was developed for English lessons in the fourth grade at German primary schools (Kindermann et al., 2024). In the first two modules, students engage receptively with fairy tales, which are provided to them as e-books. The core of the sequence is the third module, where the learners create their own digital fairy tale using tablets. For this, they use the Book Creator app (Tools for Schools Limited, 2011), which provides blank pages where students can add e.g. text, images, photos and voice recordings. b) The teaching unit was tested in three fourth-grade classes (2023 and 2024). The students developed their own digital fairy tale in small groups (2-3 children). In total, 30 digital fairy tales were created. These were collected for further analysis, with the shortest digital fairy tale comprising six pages and the longest consisting of 35 pages. c) In the next step, a theory-based analytical framework was developed to assess and evaluate the digital fairy tales. The focus was on two areas: the use of digital representation forms and the implementation of creative design possibilities. For media design, three categories were created based on Herzig (2017) and Köhn et al. (2020): used forms of representation (e.g., audio tracks, typed text), the combination of representation forms (e.g., visual and auditory modes of representation), and the technical execution of the representation forms (e.g., photo sharpness, contrast between text and background). The fourth category operationalizes creative design possibilities regarding the media domain. In line with Urban and Jellen (1995), Cropley and Kaufmann (2012) we captured components of creative action (e.g., aesthetic design of individual pages, originality of the chosen forms of representation). Each of the four categories was specified through consensual coding by two raters, with descriptions, anchor examples, and coding rules.

Currently, the analysis has covered one-third of the data, and the results will be fully available by the time of the presentation. Preliminary findings show that the small groups approached media design in very different ways, using a wide variety of representation forms and combining them in diverse ways. In all the digital stories analyzed so far, the students used at least five different media forms, with photos, typed text, and spoken audio tracks being the most dominant. Digital drawings, videos, and non-verbal audio tracks appeared less frequently. The students most often combined visual modes, while few small groups used visual-auditory combinations. Regarding technical execution, the students have achieved medium to high scores in all the analyzed fairy tales. However, from a creativity education perspective, the analysis reveals considerable variability in media implementation, particularly in the aesthetic design of the e-book pages, as well as in the originality and flexibility of how they arranged the representation forms. The wide range of representation forms used and the generally successful technical executions emphasize the potential of apps that provide students with maximum creative freedom and minimal structure. However, the fact that only some fairy tales show multimedia connections and varied combinations requires critical discussion. The results illustrate, on one hand, that basic digital competence can be developed at the intersection with other subjects (Kerres, 2020). On the other hand, they point to the necessity of addressing the media aspect as a learning content, for example, to account for the aesthetic considerations of a task. The discussion will also address methodological challenges and issues. While creativity education evaluation criteria always involve some degree of subjective interpretation (Cropley & Kaufmann, 2012), it is important to develop as objective criteria as possible for creative implementation in the media domain.

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