Education and Digital Storytelling

According to the University of Houston, Digital storytelling is like traditional storytelling but with the use of computer generated programs, pictures, audio, and video. It is a method to to combine all the resources available and compiling them together for an interactive storytelling video. A quote from John Seely Brown on the website makes a good point about the digital storytelling being a new way to use multimedia for kids who are growing up in the digital world today. This is yet another excellent opportunity to incorporate technology use in today's classroom. Both teachers and students can use this to create stories and lesson/projects. Lessons can be more engaging from the use of this technology. It is also an excellent idea for students collaborate and create projects to share online for immediate feedback. This website offers a good insight as to the seven elements that a digital story board should contain. I think this layout is good to make sure that the project is highlighted by these key questions.

• Point of View
• Dramatic Question
• Emotional Content
• Gift of Your Voice
• Power of Your Soundtrack
• Economy
• Pacing

This website provides many links to check out other areas in digital storytelling. The Web 2.0 Resources have links to blogs, podcasts, wikis, and others. I checked out several of the blogs and found one that was very intriguing to me. It is called the Story Center Blog. Due to my hearing loss, I struggled in finding one that I could understand without
the captions available, but I found one narrated in another language but captioned for English that I thought was beautiful. Not entirely educational for students but empowering for adults, the blog is titled; "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence". Digital storytelling can be used for all subject areas.

I also think that digital storytelling is an excellent way for students to work on their literature skills, organization skills, and technology skills. I have attached a digital story from a seven year old girl who shares her experience parasailing. Please feel free to check this out and think about ways to implement a lesson like this for your future classroom.