Digital Storytelling in the Classroom Storytelling has always been a significant part of history, but the means through which the stories have been told has evolved with each civilization. From the oral histories presented by bards in ancient courts, to the works of scribes during the Renaissance, to newspapers, CNN, and now the Internet, personal narrative has been used to communicate the events of the past. Digital storytelling now combines tradition with technology and allows students to tell stories through voice, text, images, audio, and video. Digital stories allow students to take a linear series of events and turn them into a multidimensional experience. Visit our digital storytelling apps page for recommendations for any device. "Telling Their Stories" - Oral History Archive Project of the Urban School Visit "Telling Their Stories" and read, watch, and listen to perhaps the best student-created oral history project in the country. Youth Producing Change - Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
Heart and Voice: A Digital Storytelling Journey By: Kerry Ballast Date: September 2007 Summary: With no knowledge of the genre or the technology, high school teacher Kerry Ballast took the risk of having her students create digital stories from their personal memoirs. It's like playing a movie of what goes on in your mind when you write. Adrianne – 9th grade It was one of those teaching experiences I never wanted to end. They described their greatest joys, their darkest thoughts, and their most embarrassing secrets. The memoir assignment was open ended and left room for a wide range of interpretations. The results were dramatic. "I'm the keeper of everyone else's backpacks and water bottles. Michael, also a sophomore, reluctantly shared a piece in which he admitted that he has a morbid fascination with car accidents and other unnatural disasters. Too Good to Let Go Of When we finished several rounds of informal writing, I filed our work away. But what did I mean by "reintroduce the memoirs?" Taking a Chance To be honest, that's all I had.
Tech2Learn - Digital Storytelling Digital Storytelling has many definitions, but usually involves the telling of our personal stories combining digital technology to integrate text, sound, graphics and sometimes film. It is a great way for students to begin working with multimedia projects because they tell their own story, learning the techniques and technical tools of this kind of creative expression, but within a familiar context. Technology and Digital Stories Digital stories involve some or all of these components:an engaging and well written storyslides or clipsbackgroundsgraphics or imagestextsounds, narration and/or musica transition to move from slide to slide or clip to clipa title slide and an ending slide that lists credits 7 Elements of Digital Stories Audience - Stories have a particular audience in mind.Purpose - Stories are trying to accomplish a task (inform, educate, entertain, scare, etc.)Content - Content must be meaningful. Adapted from the Center for Digital Storytelling Other Sites... Helpful Handouts
Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling Digital storytelling allows computer users to become creative storytellers by first beginning with the traditional processes of selecting a topic, conducting research, writing a script, and developing an interesting story. This material is then combined with various types of multimedia, including still images, recorded audio, computer-generated text, video clips, and music so that it can be played on a computer, added to a web site, posted on a blog, or burned on a DVD. The script for an educational digital story is one of the most important components that students will create. We stress to our students and workshop participants that a good digital story must first be a good story and that no matter how much expertise a student has with technology, a poorly written story will not be improved by fancy transitions and other digital effects. The First Version of the Script Story Circles Lambert uses writing prompts to get the script writing process started. Story Circle Etiquette