What is Digital Storytelling?
Dr. Bernard Robin from the University of Houston has defined digital storytelling as “the art of telling stories with a variety of digital multimedia, such as images, audio, and video. Just about all digital stories bring together some mixture of digital graphics, text, recorded audio narration, video and music to present information on a specific topic.” Dr. Robin further explains that “digital stories revolve around a chosen theme and often contain a particular viewpoint. The stories are typically just a few minutes long and have a variety of uses, including the telling of personal tales, the recounting of historical events, or as a means to inform or instruct on a particular topic.
What types of digital stories are there?
- Personal narratives
- Digital stories that examine historical events
- Digital stories that inform or instruct
How can digital stories be used in education?
Digital stories can be either teacher driven or student driven. A teacher could create a digital story to introduce a new unit or to help to better explain a math concept. A student could create a digital story to explain a short story he has written or as a project to explain the importance of Hammurabi’s Code on the development of Western civilization. Digital stories capitalize on an individual’s creativity and research skills but also develop much desired critical thinking skills.
Here are just a few of the skills acquired by those who create a digital story:
- Research Skills: Documenting the story, finding and analyzing pertinent information
- Writing Skills: Formulating a point of view and developing a script
- Organization Skills: Managing the scope of the project, the materials used and the time it takes to complete the task
- Technology Skills: learning to use a variety of tools, such as digital cameras, scanners, microphones and multimedia authoring software
- Presentation Skills: Deciding how to best present the story to an audience
- Interview Skills: Finding sources to interview and determining questions to ask
- Interpersonal Skills: Working within a group and determining individual roles for group members
- Problem-Solving Skills: Learning to make decisions and overcome obstacles at all stages of the project, from inception to completion
- Assessment Skills: Gaining expertise critiquing their own and others’ work.
What impact does the Media Center have on the creation of digital stories?
The Media Center is vital to the production of a digital story because of the invaluable resources that are located in it. Not only does the media center have access to much of material needed to complete a digital story but the media specialist, in collaboration with the classroom teacher, can introduce and teach students vital 21st Century skills within the process of completing the digital story.
What is needed to plan a digital story?
The Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) in Berkeley, California has developed and disseminated for several years “The Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling.” As students begin to develop their digital stories, they should take the following from the CDS into consideration.
CDS' Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling
- Point of View: What is the main point of the story and what is the perspective of the author?
- A Dramatic Question: A key question that keeps the viewer's attention and will be answered by the end of the story.
- Emotional Content: Serious issues that come alive in a personal and powerful way and connects the story to the audience.
- The Gift of Your Voice: A way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the context.
- The Power of the Soundtrack: Music or other sounds that support and embellish the storyline.
- Economy: Using just enough content to tell the story without overloading the viewer.
- Pacing: The rhythm of the story and how slowly or quickly it progresses.
What are the steps to create a digital story?
STEP ONE: Choose a Topic, Write a Script
- Create a folder on the desktop where you can store all of the materials related to your digital story. Select a topic for your digital story.
- Begin thinking of the purpose of your story. Are you trying to inform, convince, provoke, question? Also, think about who the audience will be for this story.
- Write the first draft of the script for your story. This script will serve as the basis of the narration you will record later.
- Read what you have written make sure your script includes a clearly articulated purpose and includes an identifiable point of view.
- Share your script with others and use their feedback to improve the next version of your script.
- Repeat the process of getting feedback and revising the script, until you are satisfied with the results.
STEP TWO: Collect Resources
- Search for or create images that can be used in your story, including: pictures, drawings, photographs, maps, charts, etc. - Save these resources in your folder.
- Try to locate audio resources such as music, speeches, interviews, and sound effects. - Save these resources in your folder.
- Try to find other informational content, which might come from web sites, word processed documents, or PowerPoint slides - Save these resources in your folder.
STEP THREE: Select Content, Develop a Storyboard
- Here is a link to a story board to use...http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/pdfs/storyboard.pdf
- Select the images you would like to use for your digital story.
- Select the audio you would like to use for your digital story.
- Select the text and any additional content you would like to use for your digital story.
- Create a storyboard that provides a textual and visual overview of your plan for the digital story.
STEP FOUR: Import, Record, Finalize
- Import images into Photo Story or other similar software program.
- Import audio into Photo Story.
- Modify the number of images and/or image order, if necessary.
- Use a computer microphone and record the narration of your script.
- Import the narration into Photo Story.
- Add music or other audio to your story.
- Finalize your digital story by saving it in a version that can be viewed.
STEP FIVE: Demonstrate, Evaluate, Replicate
- Show your digital story to your students and colleagues.
- Gather feedback about how the story could be improved, expanded, and used educationally.
- Teach others how to create their own digital story.
- Congratulate yourself for a job well done!
How do copyright laws affect digital storytelling?
Copyright plays an important role in digital storytelling and each individual creating a story needs to be aware of the law so one knows what kind of images, sounds and other media one can use without infringing the copyright of others. However, creation of digital stories in the classroom generally falls under the category of “amateur activity.” Because of this, the stories are not intended for commercial use and protected by Fair Use laws. Although, the best policy would be not to use copyrighted material unless it is absolutely necessary to avoid the issue altogether.
If you would like to know more about digital stories, here are a few references for you!
Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling:
Here are a few links to royalty free media:
American Rhetoric:
Find Sounds:
Free Kid’s Music Library:
Free Play Music Library:
Kitzu-Digital kits for Education:
Bibliography
Digital Storytelling: Navigating Copyright Issues. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2012, from Center for History and New Media website: https://sites.google.com/site/chnmdigitalstorytellingaha2012/ navigating -copyright-issues
Robin, B. R. (n.d.). The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling. Retrieved March 28, 2012, from Department of Education, University of Houston website: http://faculty.coe.uh.edu/brobin/ homepage/Educational-Uses-DS.pdf
The Seven Elements of Storytelling. (n.d.). Retrieved March 28, 2012, from Department of Education, University of Houston website: http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/7elements.html
Thanks Becky for the wealth of information you presented on digital storytelling. This is a great way to teach students. I like the fact that digital stories can b e teacher or student lead. I could see modeling this with students and then allowing them to create their own. As you stated in your blog, digital storytelling involves so many skills: researching, writing, organizing, technology, presenting, interviewing, interpreting, problem solving, and assessing. WOW!! What other types of projects could you use to incorporate such vital, essential skills? I have never used digital storytelling before, but after reading your posts, I plan to begin thinking on how I could use this in the media center. In addition, I like how you included steps for creating a story. These will be very useful.
ReplyDeleteI loved your Wordle. You did a great job on putting it all together in one little package. They should use your blog as the ‘Idiots guide to digital storytelling’. You touched on everything that I have found about DS and More! I especially like the information about copyright. I’m sure we all had that in the back of our minds after the recent copyright blogs. Also, thanks for all of the sites for free images and music. I agree about the skills that people learn as a result of doing a DS. I see a lot of stuff being pulled together to prepare for this project. Another thing that I read was that be ready to spend some time on this project. This is almost like writing a book in the preparation, except the finished product only takes 3-5 minutes for the viewer to consume. Additionally, we have to learn how to use all of the technology and software to put a finished product together.
ReplyDeleteIn a comparison with Houston LITE and CDS Berkeley, I picked up on the differences in the steps to preparation. I had to agree that there needs to be consideration for a) meaningful audio soundtrack, b) quality of images, c) economy of the story detail, d) good grammar and language use, and e) clarity of voice. Again Thank you.
The lists and steps that you posted are really helpful. It breaks down digital storytelling in to a really simple plan. I think it would be really useful to present digital storytelling to students with the steps.
ReplyDeleteI am copying the royalty free links. They are a really great place to start collecting for digital story.
I think the storyboard step is really important and often left out. Student and adults alike want to minimize the amount of work they have to do, but you have to have an organized plan. For our praticular project it is going to be important to plan our our sound along with the pictures. A drawn storyboard is the best way to make a plan.
Becky,
ReplyDeleteWow! You have such great information and resources for digital storytelling. With the advances in technology, I really feel like this is exactly the direction teaching is going into. I can see the uses of digital storytelling in all major subject areas. With math and science, the enhancement of the lesson would be profound. Just imagine hearing Marie Curie's voice on an interview...or news clips from the Manhattan Project. I think that the history of math or science would definitely come alive for students that are still using the same principles, theories, or equipment. Similarly, I really feel like history and literature could have deeper meanings when integrating resources from the time periods into a class lesson.
I really appreciate the step by step procedures that you supplied. For our class project, I've already begun my steps, and now, I plan to use your blog information as a roadmap of what I need to do. I really do appreciate the links that you provided.
Overall, this is one of the most helpful blogs that I've read! Thanks for the hard work, Becky!
Jennifer
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ReplyDeleteBecky,
ReplyDeleteYou have quite a collection of resources here and I know I will come back to it as I continue to work towards creating my own digital story project. I particularly like the link to the pdf story board you included (http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/pdfs/storyboard.pdf ). It would connect quite nicely with plot mapping for Language Arts and Reading curriculum and fits well with the unit on personal narratives (how middle grades language arts teachers start the year per the curriculum map).
I also loved the photobus website. It provides fantastic examples, my favorite of which is Young Shavers. The music the creator includes gives the viewer the feeling of listening to the boy’s father as he shaves and the plot line of examining the history of his grandfather and the relationship between generations of boys and their fathers was very well done.
The thing that stuck with me from the reading in the text this week about digital storytelling is “their necessarily affective nature. The shared emotion generated by teller and listener by a well-told story draws people together…” As teachers, we know that events that heighten emotional response are more likely to be remembered. Digital storytelling, with its “necessarily affective nature,” gives us an opportunity to engage students on an emotional level and vice versa for a memorable learning experience.
Anne
it is very obvious that you have put a lot of thought and effort into this post. Let me say a big "THANK YOU". This could very well be a how-to guide. I knew a man over in Alabama whose favorite saying was " Plan your work, work your plan. Thanks to you, I do not have to plan my work. You have done that for me. In the Seven Elements you listed, I am really glad that #6 was put in the listing. I like the word economy and I hope that everyone will remember it. We all need to make sure that we get our point across and it does not get overshadowed by the fluff. I also want to say thank you for all the resources. I plan to spend some extended time on each one in the very near future and really expect to use ideas from them. Thanks again for all your hard work.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rebecca for your post.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the skills learned would make this activity invaluable for students to learn. However, I continually come across those students that do not have computers at home and the challenge becomes access to do assignments.
Digital Storytelling takes effort and a lot of thought for it to come together as a worthy piece. When I first heard of the idea I was not sure how to wrap my mind around it. Now, I have a better idea of how to make this happen. Thanks.