Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is a new literacy practice that is highly useful in the educational setting.  As stated in the article 7 Things You Should Know About Digital Storytelling, “digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digi­tal content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component.” Basically, it lets a person tell a story by using computer-based tools. I think the best thing about digital storytelling is that a story can be created with any sort of path, combination, and media integration. It gives the author a limitless amount of resources and allows for maximum creativity.  Another great point made at the site called Center for Digital Storytelling is that literally anyone has the ability to create a digital story.  It explains that a digital storyteller is, “Anyone who has a desire to document life experience, ideas, or feelings through the use of story and digital media. Usually someone with little to no prior experience in the realm of video production but time to spend a few days attending a workshop and developing a story with creative support and technical assistance from compassionate, highly experienced facilitators.” This means that any student can create a digital story with the guidance and support from a teacher (the facilitator).  Making a digital story promotes confidence and encourages ownership of their creation.  It lets students express themselves through literacy and media in a way that pencil and paper does not allow.

                According to 7 Things You Should Know About Digital Storytelling, “A digital story typically begins with a script. The storyteller then assembles rich media to support the ideas and emotions in that script, including music or other audio effects, personal or public-domain images, animations or video, and other electronic ele­ments. The storyteller pieces together and edits the digital story, creating a short movie, usually about two to four minutes long, in one of various file formats.”

                The uses of digital storytelling in any classroom are endless, especially in a foreign language classroom! Digital stories can take on any kind of topic and contain different points of view. The website The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling mentions that, “The topics that are used in Digital Storytelling range from personal tales to the recounting of historical events, from exploring life in one's own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between.” In my future Spanish classroom, I can use digital storytelling for multiple topics.  For example, students could create digital stories about Spanish-speaking countries/cultures/holidays, make children’s books based on a specific topic, and write a digital story using a certain tense (events that have happened in the past or what they hope to happen in the future).  There is room for digital storytelling in any curriculum.  All you need is a little imagination!

Photo by umjanedoan (Flickr)