Week 7: Digital Storytelling

 This week we talked about the usefulness of digital storytelling. Digital Storytelling is a form of visual literacy, which we talked about last week. Digital Storytelling is the practice of using computer-based programs to tell a story. Better put, it’s using a video or other piece of technology to tell a story.

Much like traditional storytelling, digital storytelling tells the story of something specific and can vary in length. A big part of learning about digital storytelling this week was from our Digital Storytelling Forum, where everyone in the class could create their own digital story and share their thoughts.  Here is my video. It has pictures of me and my sisters, Julie and Jenny. The pictures show us together, on vacation, or with relatives. I really enjoyed the digital storytelling project. I used Animoto to create the video. It was very simple to use, and I think anyone can get the hang of it. I had fun working on it.

Programs like Animoto help bring digital storytelling to the public. Many people have the idea that digital storytelling is too technical and something only for professionals to use, but those same professionals have developed programs that the mainstream people can work with.

One area where digital storytelling is important is the media. Of course, we already see it in TV news. However, as print media shifts to the online and tech-savvy world, it's becoming more important for journalists to tell stories and share news in a variety of ways. For instance, videos like the ones Animoto creates could be used for small features, profiles or even bigger stories. Many readers now get their news from online sites rather the newspaper, so it's a great market to pursue. Many of the areas we talk about in education overlap to the field of journalism, and I think this is one of the key examples of that. Storytelling is, basically, what journalists do. So it only makes since that we use all forms of storytelling.

Education is also an important area for digital storytelling. Students learn in a variety of ways. Some are visual, others need to hear you speak, and others might rather read something, so educators should be ready to help students learn in whatever area suits them. As the age of digital storytelling is still new, there are many teachers who do not yet take advantage of digital storytelling. The Digital Storytelling Resources for Educators breaks down digital storytelling into workshops and lessons. The site is provided by the authors of the book Digital Storytelling with PowerPoint. This site is great for future teachers to get some ideas about how to use digital storytelling in the classroom.