DIGITAL STORYTELLING

We are our stories. We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves.

Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind

 

After a digital storytelling is shared, it should be remembered for its soul, not the bells and whistles of technology.

Bernajean Porter - Sharing Stories that Need to Be Told

My hope is that by gathering some information here about digital storytelling I can give you an introduction and starting point for trying it in your own classroom. I have some experience with digital storytelling but the resources herein are drawn from a wide variety of folks with more knowledge than I have. I hope the information in this wiki will reduce your own research and start-up time. A few of the well-known experts and organizations in the field of Digital Storytelling in education are well worth visiting:

Use This Table of Contents or Scroll to Navigate

Introduction to Digital Storytelling Slideshow

Definitions

Digital Storytelling is the art of turning a personal narrative into a multimedia experience. It can combine music, video and/or still images with your creative voice. The results are an original production that engages the viewing audience in ways that are often surprising and powerful.Digital storytelling can be used to introduce or reinforce the power of writing. Through the writing process and its refinement, students often discover the power of personal expression and greater creativity with digital tools at their aid. http://www.digitalstories.org/

Telling a story "digitally" means merging a short narrative, with corresponding audio, and various types of visual media, including photos, artwork, letters, and digital video. It also brings storytelling to the computer arena – so that it may be more easily distributed, communicated and linked with other stories, in order to create a global storytelling experience.

Wikibooks

Storytelling is also an ancient form of teaching. Before books, reading and writing became widely spread and available, oral storytelling was the only form the wisdom and knowledge of the people were passed down from elders to children, Nowadays, technology has given us a new twist to this ancient teaching method. By incorporating once again storytelling to paint a picture of our world in order to teach others about our knowledge, culture and people. Digital storytelling gives us the ability to reach and disseminate further our stories than ever before in history. Storytelling, no matter in what form and created in whatever media is a powerful tool to transmit knowledge, culture, perspectives and points of view.

Sylvia Tolisano, Langwitches

Digital Storytelling Examples

Samples by My Students

Samples by Others - Various Levels of Quality

Why Teach With Digital Storytelling?

What if we gave students the opportunity to tell the stories of their lives? We can do so by combining story telling with a set of powerful digital tools.This is a truly authentic learning experience that represents value-added technology use, and develops many different types of intellectual skills in students. But most importantly, it helps students to develop a competitive voice*, and gives them a creative palette to compose in a language familiar to them (technology). Here are some examples:

• A student who never talks in class develops a digital story about being afraid to talk. He describes how he likes being talked to, how he is misunderstood and lonely, and how he had to develop a new identity. He shows how this was accomplished through the Internet, and as a result, found some true friends. For a student who says nothing, he has much to say.

• A student who has a handicap and is selectively mute tells a story and makes a breakthrough by recording the voice-over.

• Hearing impaired students attempt speech, learn to use text-to-speech tools, or master subtitles to make their voices heard.

• A student who is mildly autistic actually tells a story about his favorite hobby.

• A student reconnects with her estranged siblings through her digital story.

• A student tells of the importance of her childhood drawings as representations of her life, and what she wants that life to become.

• And there are other stories — tales of first-loves, of the death of loved ones, of personal sacrifice, of accomplishment, of the importance of a place, of challenges overcome, of important moments in a life, and of the value of parents and grandparents.

A *competitive voice is one that can be heard, and with the digital publishing resources available today, such as web sites, wikis, social networks, and YouTube, students have the capability to distribute their story to a worldwide audience. The multimedia elements of digital storytelling provide the necessary elements to make this a reality.

 

Digital storytelling helps students explore the meaning of their own experience, give value to it, and communicate that experience on multiple levels to others. An educational experience that includes digital storytelling not only promotes the development of life-long learners, but life-long communicators as well.

Adapted from David Jakes "Making a Case for Digital Storytelling"

 

More reasons that digital storytelling is a worthwhile teaching tool:

We can introduce new concepts, materials and the knowledge in a meaningful way, we can organize ideas. Students can create stories about events, places, family, characters, books they read; memories, advertisement, feelings. They can create announcements, news, movie trailers, personal expressions and many more. Let's have a look some of the digital storytelling tools.

Excerpted from Özge Karaoğlu's Teaching English Blog

Getting Started

For a good starting point, here are two pertinent articles:

First read Terry Freedman's

Digital Storytelling: A Practical Classroom Management Strategy, especially if you want your students to work in groups on their stories.

Then read Edutopia's

How to Use Digital Storytelling in Your Classroom.

Looking at the Process.

Naturally there are a variety of ways to the steps, procedures, parts and actions of building a digital story. You will find they are fairly similar. Here are a few, followed by the process I use in my own classroom.

Planning Steps from Mark Nichols, Arizona Learning Exchange

1) Brainstorm an idea for your story. Consider audience and purpose.

 

2) Develop a narrative script.

 

3) Create a simple storyboard to determine the sequence of the story.

 

4) Collect or create images for the story

 

5) Identify music for soundtrack

 

Storytelling Steps from Wesley Fryer’s Teach Digital Curriculum

 

1. Plan: Storyboard and Write

 

2. Produce: Record the pieces

 

3. Chop: Edit the pieces

 

4. Publish: Share your creation

 

Digital Storytelling: A Tutorial in 10 Easy Steps

J.D. Lasica

 

7 Steps To Create A Digital Story

Digitales http://www.digitales.us/resources/seven_steps.ph

The Digital Storytelling Process

Step 1: Write

Step 2: Develop Script

Step 3: Storyboard

Step 4: Locate Resources

Step 5: Create

Step 6: Share

David Jakes Capturing Stories, Capturing Lives

Sample Lesson Plan

Connie Lindsay http://www.texasschoolmarm.net/storytelling.htm

Kevin Hodgson's Lesson Plans

Continued at Digital Storytelling Part 2

 

Additional Credits:

 

McLellan, Wyatt Digital

http://www.tech-head.com/dstory.htm

Mrs. Smoke

http://mrssmoke.onsugar.com/3307628

 

Wikibooks,

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Instructional_Technology/Digital_Storytelling

 

Wesley Fryer

http://handouts.wesfryer.com/ds

 

David Jakes "Making a Case for Digital Storytelling"

http://www.techlearning.com/article/4958

Planning A Story

Make your first Digital Story a small and manageable project.

A. Draft, Map, Edit and Write Script

 

Remind your students that the planning and writing portions of the project are the most important. There is no need to do anything digitally until the planning and writing processes are complete, so if you have limited access to computers this will help you.

Topic Selection.

 

The most moving and rich digital stories are personal stories. However, digital stories can be about any topics. Sometimes the purpose is merely to have the students improve their writing and show what they've learned. (Not all students are comfortable telling personal tales; it's wise to have an option that accommodates their sensitivities while meeting the project objectives.) I try to give as many choices within the project scope as possible; after all, one of our goals is to engage the students with more than just the bells and whistles of the tech tools.

 

There is no reason you would have to limit your projects to one subject area unless you want to. For example, you could assign choices based on the following list by The Tech Teachers, http://techteachers.com/digstory/ideas.htm:

Drafting, Editing, Mapping, and Storyboarding.

Once your students have chosen topics, they need to begin to flesh out their story. It would be a mistake to take shortcuts during the planning and writing phase of the process!

Brainstorming/Questioning.

 

First the writers must ask themselves some important questions to see whether the story is viable. We use this simple brainstorming form for that purpose. We call it The 5 W's. (who, what, when, where, etc.). You could do this activity on paper or digitally.

When the brainstorming/questioning is finished, the students have some idea of the basics of their stories, the next step would be to either begin writing first, then map the story or the action somehow, or reverse that process. (We work on the Story Map early in the drafting process as a substitute for outlining.) MORE ABOUT MAPPING AND STORYBOARDING BELOW. You could do this activity on paper or digitally.

Writing The Story

Writing a digital story draws on all the writing skills used in traditional story writing. Use the solid writing instructional tools and methods you already have.

 

David Jakes suggests, "Within the writing, it is important that the story have a central theme, such as loss, or accomplishment, among others. The importance of this theme is for the viewer of the story; even though the story is about another’s experience, the viewer relates to the story because they have experienced similar types of events in their lives. http://www.jakesonline.org/dstory_ice.pdf

When the stories are written they will be incorporated into the script. (More about scripts belowwith Storyboarding.) You could do these activities on paper or digitally.

The Center for Digital Storytelling has defined seven elements for creating effective and interesting multimedia stories.

1. A Point (of View)

2. The Power of The Soundtrack

3. Economy

4. Pacing

5. A Dramatic Question

6. Emotional Content

7. The Gift of Your Voice

This is what Jon Orech The Creative Educator, says about writing the digital story:

"The foundation of a good digital story is a solid piece of writing that includes a point, dramatic question, and emotional content. In addition to these key elements, I have my students focus on verb choice, observations, and keeping their writing concise.

 

Precise verbs drive a story.Action verbs provide a far richer meaning and appeal to the senses better than linking verbs. Looking at my cat Sunny next to me, I might write “The cat was relaxed,” but a better choice would be “The cat lounged on the couch.” Verbs with a definite meaning also help the viewer create a more accurate mental picture of the story. The word “walk” is not nearly as descriptive as “saunter,” “stroll,” “stagger,” “stomp,” or “strut.”

 

Effective writers must observe carefully. When viewers observe our stories, they infer meaning. If we make these inferences for them, we cheat our audience. “He was mad,” tells the audience, but “His nostrils flared, his teeth clenched, and his eyes bulged” allows the viewer to draw their own inferences and become a more active participant in the story. Including sensory terms and descriptions allows the audience to create the picture in their minds.

 

Too much background dilutes a story. Feeling like they need to set up an entire scene so they don’t confuse their audience, writers often add too much detail. However, a carefully written first sentence can take us right into the story. The viewer will figure out what is happening based on their own experiences."

Mapping and Storyboarding

 

There are a multitude of different formats for storyboarding and story mapping. It is easiest to think of it and describe it to your students as a sort of "comic strip" to illustrate what will happen in their movie.Prior to making our storyboards, my students a graphic organizer as another planning tool: this Story Map. Most children are familiar with similar story map formats they have used in their reading instruction. Remember the story elements? You could do this activity on paper or digitally.

 

It is only after we have written the Story Map that we move on to actually writing the story on a storyboard. I ask my students to actually write the story as the narration to their movie -- not necessarily in paragraph or prose format. Hence we do not write it on a separate document -- we include the exact language they will use to tell their story in the appropriate place on the storyboard. You could do these activities on paper or digitally.

Again, there are many, many different formats for storyboarding. You might like this one, this one, this one, this one or this one. You might also like to investigate some others at these links:

Excellent Interactive Storyboarding Tutorial by Learning and Teaching Scotland

Accompanying Lesson Guide

DIGITAL STORYBOARD SQUARES.doc

A Blank StoryBoard

Making Movies - Storyboard

Simple Storyboard Form

Storyboard Organizer

Interactive Storyboard Exercise

Storyboard Planning Sheet (PDF)

Storyboard Pro - Free storyboarding software

Story Board Software - free download

Transforming The Story into a Script

 

"The script is usually a distillation of the essential components of the narrative story. As the digital story is created, the script forms the foundation, and the various multimedia elements serve to rebuild the story. For example, the narrative may be between three or four typed pages. The script resulting from this narrative may be about a page in length. Producing the digital story from the script ensures that the multimedia elements convey and contribute meaning to the story, rather than being (bells and whistles) included to make the story more “interesting.” http://www.jakesonline.org

g/dstory_ice.pdf You could do these activities on paper or digitally

 

For the very simplest script, why not do this, suggested by Scott Firenza http://www.lubbockisd.org/sfirenza/storytelling/

 

"One easy way for students to do a script is to fold a regular sheet of notebook paper in half length wise (hot dog). On the left half of the sheet write their script. The right hand side can be used for notes or sketches of the scene. A full left side of the paper equates roughly to one minute of spoken voice in the story."

 

I use a few different formats for writing scripts with my students. Here is just one: FINAL SCRIPT.doc

C. Gather raw materials (images, video clips, etc.) and Record voices or video as necessary.

 

At this point the students need to find the ingredients they will need to put together their movie/story. They can use "still-frame imagery or video. Students may also scan images from photographs from personal collections at this point. It is important to note, depending on the topic of the digital story that students will indeed bring in personal photos; it is important that the school or lab have sufficient scanning capability."

 

Students can take pictures with cameras or cell phones so long as you have the means, time, and know-how to transfer them into a format usable by your movie-making or sound editing programs.

 

Mr. Jakes also notes "We have discouraged the inclusion of video clips as video adds another layer of complexity to the process, both in the recording, rendering (making the final movie) and it increases the memory storage requirements greatly." Adapted from David Jakes http://www.jakesonline.org/dstory_ice.pdf

 

For more about raw multimedia components, visit these pages:

Working With Video

Working With DigitalImages

Working With Audio

The Storage Locker

D. Build/Edit Movie(s), Slide(s) and Sounds.

 

The most popular software for digital storytelling are far and away PhotoStory3, Movie Maker, and Audacity. You can also create, fine-tune and publish your movie in one place with more and more internet sites every day. Here are a few:

Animoto

VoiceThread

DigitalStoryteller

BubbleShare

JumpCut

EyeSpot

Viddler

Motionbox

Slideshare

Flickr

For more about manipulating multimedia components, visit these pages:

Working With Video

Working With DigitalImages

Working With Audio

The Storage Locker

E. Publish or Share.

The best part about digital storytelling is sharing with others. You can download your movies to a cd, dvd, or flash drive when you are finished. To get a bigger audience you can also post it on your own wiki, blog, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, or ThinkQuest web site

VoiceThread (What is a Voice Thread?)

DigitalStoryteller

BubbleShare

JumpCut

EyeSpot

Viddler

Motionbox

Slideshare

Flickr

dotSUB

NextVisaforLearning

TeacherTube

UthTV.com

Blip.TV

YouTube

Glogster

Mixbook

Allan Levine shows 50 different ways of publishing (he uses the same story for all 50!)

http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/Dominoe+50+Ways

F. Assessment.

Depending on the nature of the project, a digital story can be an effective way for the students to illustrate their understanding of a subject. As such, it can be a valuable form of performance assessment. However, not all stories lend themselves to that.

Sample Rubrics:

• digstory rubric.pdf

• Nine (9) Traits for Scoring - From Bernajean Porter, Digitales http://www.digitales.us/

More Sample grading rubrics from The Visible Knowledge Project

"These three sample grading rubrics highlight emergent issues for the project: the challenges and opportunities faculty face when assessing student-created new media "products." Some central questions are: What are the the ways in which new media draw attention to visual and conceptual creativity in student work? How can faculty begin to assess both "critical thinking" and "creativity."

The first rubric is a grid for assessing the overall quality of the story being told in a digital story and emphasizes such factors as "emotional content," which tend toward the creativity side of the creative/critical continuum.

 

The second rubric is an assessment tool adapted from the National Standards for U.S. History. This rubric guides faculty in assessing a digital story by intellectual standards similar to those employed in the assessment of a more traditional historical paper.

 

The third rubric emphasizes visual literacy and seeks to provide a framework for understanding the sophistication of a student's use of images in making the argument of their story.

These resources were first gathered by Tracey Weis for a Millersville University Digital Stories Workshop. Michael Coventry wrote new descriptions for this story.

Equipment and Software

Necessary and Required

Computer(s) - Most people find Apples much more easily suited for multimedia tasks but things can work beautifully on PC's as well. How many do you need? That depends on how many students you have and whether you can stagger them -- they rotate on and off the computers doing other activities

 

Software - The programs you use will vary greatly and you will be doing some of the work on web-based applications, but in general you will need Windows Movie Maker (comes with Windows XP and Vista), PhotoStory 3 (free download from Microsoft), and Audacity (free download). Apple users will like iMovie and Garageband. Some people use image editors like Adobe Photoshop but they aren't necessary.

 

Raw Material(s) - Podsafe, copyright-free, royalty-free, or Creative Commons-licensed photos, video clips, music and sounds. These are easily obtained on the internet. See the Resources below.

Cables - USB and firewire cables and mains extensions/splitters

Optional

Digital cameras and tripods (if you want to shoot your own video). Not for beginners or the faint-hearted. Buy some for your class, borrow from everyone, and see your library media technician. Don't forget storage media like DV tapes, memory cards, and card readers. You can also use cell phone cameras as long as the footage can be transferred from the phone to a computer or storage media (i.e. SD cards).

 

Voice recording set-up, including attached or detached headsphones and microphones. In my class we use our cell phones and headsets with in-line microphones because that's what we can afford.

Projector and screen

For More, Including Downloads: Visit The Storage Locker

Where To Find More Examples of Digital Stories

• http://www.fusionspark.com/portfolio/portfolio.html Check out the fusionspark media portfolio.

• http://www.du.edu/~mimcdowe/index_flash.html Broken Sky, an environmental movie.

• http://www.itvs.org/facetoface/intro.html Powerful stories from Infamy and 9-11.

• http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov1999/regrettoinform/index.html PBS Regret to Inform site.

• http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov1999/regrettoinform/index.html Exploring Death in America.

• http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article410.html Tips for creating an oral history.

• http://tech-head.com/dstory.htm This is a large collection of links to various digital storytelling resources.

• http://www.springfield.k12.il.us/movie/fire.mov The We Didn't start the Fire movie.

• http://www.springfield.k12.il.us/movie/fire.html Lesson for we didn't start the fire.

• http://edweb.sdsu.edu/sciencetg/elementary/pond/pond.html Explore the pond.

• http://www.mesquiteisd.org/imovie/monarchbutterfly.htm Check out the butterflies.

• http://inquirer.philly.com/specials/2000/drexel/ The life of Katherine Drexel

• http://www.themoonlitroad.com/ Ghost stories told by storytellers.

• http://iwitnesstohistory.org/ Text based stories from I witness history site.

• http://www.oneworldjourneys.com/ Stories from around the world.

• http://www.thislife.org/ Audio stories.

• http://www.bubbe.com/ Examples to explore.

Additional Resources, Links, Books, Articles

(see also The Storage Locker)