Digital Storytelling

This week we learned about digital storytelling, which we will be working on as one of our projects.

We began by discussing a few elements of storytelling. While we read about 7 elements, we focused on 3 that are unique to digital storytelling. The 3 elements are the gift of your voice, images that convey emotional content, and the power of the soundtrack. These will be elements that we will be using in creating our digital stories. The gift of voice is unique, as we will be able to record ourselves narrating our own stories. This will make the story reflect our emotions. The pictures we use can help tell the story as well as add more emotion to the story itself. The soundtrack can be a variety of sounds and the sounds can change with each motion of the story. This will help set the tone of the story.
We also discussed how to find images for our stories. The main ways we discussed to show our story were by using photographs we already have, perhaps from a trip, by drawing the pictures to illustrate our story, by going out and taking pictures to go along with the narration, or downloading images from the internet. We watched examples using all of these methods, and they all seemed to work really well.
We then learned how to use PhotoStory3. This is the tool we will be using to create our stories for class. The program seems pretty easy to use. It will be a great tool to check our work, set our pictures to our narration, add titles, etc. I think that I will really like using this tool.

This information can be used in the classroom in the future. Learning about PhotoStory3 was great because this tool can be used with students. I think that with older/more mature students, it could be a tool for them to use individually to create their own stories. They would be able to use a variety of methods of picking pictures. It would be a great, unique way to teach a lesson, perhaps an English writing lesson to students. This could also be used with younger children, perhaps as a class project. Each child could illustrate a picture and narrate it, and we as teachers could put the story together for the class. It might be fun to use this after a field trip with the class to narrate the trip.
This tool could also be used as an instructional tool by the teacher alone. Rather than having the students create a story, we could use this as teachers to present material in a new and interesting way for the students. We could create a story as a narrative that teaches history lesson, or any subject really. It would be a great way to keep students motivated to watch and learn. After using it like this, the teacher may be able to introduce it as a tool the students can use themselves as well.

I think that it is difficult to decide on and create a story to share with others. I have started to think about my story for class, but am having trouble deciding how to illustrate them or find illustrations that would tell the story well. I wonder if there are certain types of stories that seem to work better when matched with certain types of illustrations. Hopefully I will be able to figure this question out in creating my story!