Building on narrative theory, empowerment and strengths perspectives, we discuss the transformation that students experience when they use digital storytelling as a way to make connections between themselves and the globalized world.

Storytelling has many purposes challenging us to examine our contributions to the world we know. Stories expand our perspectives, inviting us to worlds we have not yet imagined. Stories help us identify problems and implement solutions, learning what is productive and possible. Digital storytelling is a new language, a democratic literacy that our students use to demonstrate mastery as emerging social work professionals. Digital storytelling allows students, particularly those with marginal status, to exhibit knowledge and skills that can be suppressed in traditional pedagogical methods. Digital storytelling liberates both the story-teller and the listener, reclaiming the ancient practice of oral storytelling, often lost in colonized populations.