Online Interactive Storytelling as a Strategy for Learning Music and for Integrating Pupils with Hearing Disorders into Early Childhood Education (ECE)

The aim of the present study is to find a solution to a situation that we have observed during our teaching careers, namely the exclusion of pupils with hearing disorders from musical education. To this end we decided to make use of online storytelling as a way of approaching the issue of social and peer integration, as storytelling and new technology are both elements that hold a great appeal for such pupils. Results were assessed by carrying out a study into a group from the third year of ECE, which had recently seen the admission of a pupil with hearing difficulty. The study concluded that the use of online digital storytelling led to an enhanced level of musical appreciation in the entire group and especially in the pupil who was the focus of the study, who became better integrated in the class and whose self-esteem increased notably.