Digital Storytelling
Our organization gets to hear from Bryan Alexander next week. He’s the author of The New Digital Storytelling - Creating Narratives with New Media.
Thanks to an Amazon gift card, I purchased the book and am plopped down on the couch ready to read so I can be somewhat informed by the time the workshop comes around. Check out the link http://www.amazon.com/New-Digital-Storytelling-Creating-Narratives/dp/0313387494 if you’d like to get your own copy.
I haven’t yet used the digital storytelling approach in elearning, classroom learning or mobile learning. Or, have I? Perhaps some informal storytelling, but not with much digital support.
Oh, and here’s a link to more of his links - http://www.nudgevillage.com/village-stories/2011/10/22/villager-bryan-author-and-speaker.html on Nudge Village - a site that promote entrepreneurs and encourages them to share ideas with each other.
YouTube Create: Easy Digital Storytelling
whiteboardblog.co.ukNow it is even easier to create content for YouTube without even needing a video camera or webcam. YouTube has just launched ‘YouTube Create‘ a new portal pulling together three great animation tools: GoAnimate, Stupeflix, an Xtranormal, each of which lets you ‘build’ custom videos featuring virtual avatars, custom speech, and more. All three would be excellent resources to support digital storytelling.
Click through to read more.
Using Storybird
edutopia.orgIf you haven’t heard of Storybird, it’s one of the coolest web applications out there for helping students tell digital stories. Click through for three great examples of how teachers have used Storybird. Here’s one:
Stephen Davis on How He Uses StorybirdHere is an example from my eighth grade class based in Cypress, California.
Storybird can help students bring abstract thoughts in their mind to life and adds a dynamic, digital component to traditional storyboards.
Without requiring any artistic ability, students drag and drop characters and images onto a digital storyboard. Students are inspired by the themes and artwork available on Storybird: abstract thoughts and emotions students could not express easily come to the surface.
A concrete visual representation of their abstract thoughts can now be transformed into wonderful writing. Students can use the finished Storybird to write a paper that expands their abstract thoughts into a traditional essay.
Destinee, a student in my class, created a Storybird prior to writing part of her essay. Then, Destinee’s Storybird became a portion of an essay that she wrote. In this way, students in my class can choose which piece, the Storybird or the formal essay, they want to be given a formal grade. Students now have experience writing formal essays and expressing themselves in a relevant, meaningful manner.
The Publisher’s Anxiety at the Electronic Book
publishingperspectives.comThis.
The screen was supposed to be limitless, a portal to another dimension…yet novels have merely traded one container for another.
And more importantly, THIS.
Huge amounts of attention are therefore being given to more or less superficial parts of the debate: pricing, formats, business models, the latest gadget. What are being sidelined are the most important aspects of literature’s digital future. Namely, how can we use digital devices to change the way we tell stories?
Using Digital Storytelling as a Tutoring Tool
Teachers and tutors can use digital storytelling as an effective instructional tool for varying levels of students. Digital Storytelling uses technology to create and express stories with images, audio, and video. Digital Storytelling by students provides a strong foundation in many different types of literacy, such as information literacy, technology literacy, and media literacy (Robin, 2008). The process of storytelling starts with deciding which story to tell and identifying the audience. Stories can be based on personal narratives, interviews, subject specific, or instructional. One of values in using digital storytelling as an educational tool is that it empowers both teachers and students to develop stories using various forms of self-expression. Through the storytelling process, students can refine their communication skills by developing stories that reflect their perspectives and understanding of the world around them. Getting students to write, especially about themselves, family, or community is one way to encourage writing while strengthening writing skills.
Resources to learn more about using Digital Storytelling
What is Digital Storytelling? video
How to Create a Digital Story
Storyboarding: Developing Your Digital Story
Microsoft Office Digital Storytelling Teaching Guide
Digital Storytelling Cookbook
Tools to Create a Digital Story
Power Point/Slide Share or Brainshark : Create digital story using power point and upload and record narrative to Slide Share. .
Prezi : Online presentation software
Animoto: Use photos and videos to turn into a slideshow
Xtranormal: Create short animated movies
Photo Story: Create a story/slideshow using your digital photos
Essentials of Stories that Last Forever
Peter Guber advises readers to tell stories that become Never-ending Stories. Stories so powerful and effective, they take on a perpetual life of their own. From in-progress reading Guber’s Tell to Win, Doug Lipman’s Improving Your Storytelling and Jack McGuire’s The Power of Personal Storytelling I distill and correlate some elements of a successful story.
A story’s success is directly measured by the response to the call to action at the end. That happens when the story touches the spirit of a person in their hearts. The three qualities of the spirit are: truth, awareness and joy: in no particular order.
Truth: Storytellers need to be authentic, stories need to be personal or eyewitness accounts.
Awareness: Transporting the audience through gestures, pauses, imagination, visualization, involving as many senses as possible.
Joy: If the heart is touched, emotions will be stirred - hopefully in the right direction. Although the ending may be sad or happy, the joy of transformation is beyond the duality of happy/sad. The joy of the resolution need to be distinctively there. Like a magic trick’s prestige stage when both the audience and the performer bask in the glory of a big finish.
Will you make storytelling a tool in building your digital tribe? Let me know. I am eager to hear your story.
Storytelling tools for children & students
To everyone in the States: Happy Thanksgiving! And to everyone else: Happy November! Whether you are celebrating the holidays or working with your children and students, we thought you would enjoy these popular storytelling tools.
- Toontastic - “You can easily create your own character or use any of the custom-made characters available on Toontastic. Once you have created your own animation, you can also upload it on ToonTube, and share it with your peers.” - Monika Arora, Online English and Biology Teacher
- Kidblog - “I really like how Kidblog allows students to have a blog to share their personal thoughts… all while under the control and security of their teachers.” - Georgina Chong-You, Teacher/Instructor at School/Home
- StoryKit - Create digital stories with text, drawings, and photos on the iPhone, then share them with teachers, parents, and friends. Includes four public domain children’s books that you can rewrite and rearrange into your own story.
- ComicBook - “I have [asked] students to show a sequence of events in a literature study and to construct a short historical recount. Students really enjoy using this app.” - Rich Prowse, Primary Teacher/Coordinator
- BoomWriter - “A innovative/fun site for students to engage their writing skills by educational competitive writing.” - David Kapuler, Ed Tech Specialist
- SonicPics - “Simple and best tool for creating digital podcasts. Uploads directly to Youtube, which allows students to embed on their blogs.” - Billie Napoleon
Perhaps one of these tools is right for your children and students. Have them recount a historical event in their own words and pictures. Watch them creatively describe a fictional meal with someone they admire. Or ask them to incorporate a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) subject into a story. For evaluating their stories, lots of rubrics exist.
Want to share this list? Here is a handy bookmarkable collection you can use.
If you like (or don’t like) your experience with any of these tools, please share your impressions by leaving a review on edshelf. If you would like to join hundreds of your fellow educators in receiving highlights of new tools, sign up to get weekly or monthly updates.
From all of us at edshelf, Happy Thanksgiving and Happy November! Thank you for teaching and inspiring future generations, and making a difference in their lives.
- Mike Lee, Co-founder of edshelf
Brown Canada Creative Arts Workshops. Legacies of the Komagata Maru: Digital Storytelling
Legacies of the Komagata Maru: Digital Storytelling workshop with Mariam Ahmad & Asam Ahmad, Tuesday, May 29th, 2012 & Tuesday, June 5th, 2012 5-8pm @ Don Montgomery CRC
Workshop content provided by: Mariam Ahmad & Asam Ahmad, Graduate of Asian Arts Freedom School
What: In these workshops we will explore the marginalized and/or hidden histories of the South Asian diaspora in Canada, what it means to be a racialized youth/immigrant today and how to tell our stories through art-based media. In two workshop sessions, we will create a stop-animation short film that tells a collective story, with individual vignettes, and themes and content led by group participants. In the first session we will begin talking about our complex histories, earning about stop-motion, and brainstorming ideas for the video. The second workshop will be comprised of story-boarding the narrative, recording individual stories and voiceovers, and crafting the actual visuals for the film.
When: Tuesday, May 29th, 2012 & Tuesday, June 5th, 2012, 5:00 to 8:00 pm
Where: Don Montgomery CRC, 2467 Eglinton Ave E
Fully Accessible. Ward: 35, District: Scarborough. Near: Midland & Eglinton
TTC Information: Travel to Kennedy Station. Board the 86A Scarborough and travel to 2495. Walk west to 2467 Eglinton Avenue East.
Who: Youth & young adults, ages 16-30 welcome
How: Space is limited! Please contact Deena Hai at deena@cassa.on.ca to register / or location contact
Please register by Friday, May 25th, 4 p.m
Follow Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/171294869666168/
Follow Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/browncanadaproject
Visit: http://km.browncanada.ca/index.php
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Brown Canada, lead by CASSA, is a community-led history project to encourage South Asian communities to create and document their histories in Canada creatively, through writing, video, interviews, art, theatre or other means. Our collective entry point for this project is through the Komagata Maru incident of 1914, when a ship of South Asian people was denied entry into Canada due to restrictive immigration policy known as the continuous journey regulation. Through this project, we are creating an interactive website, offering educational and creative workshops, producing a short video as well as seeking to tour a short theatre piece to raise awareness of the incident and spark community dialogue within Ontario.
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The Asian Arts Freedom School is an art-based radical Asian history and activism program for Asian/Pacific Islander youth in the Greater Toronto Area. Asian = South Asian, West Asian (a.k.a. Arab or Middle-Eastern), Southeast Asian, East Asian, and Central Asian,Pacific Islander, diasporic via the Caribbean and Africa…mixed-race, adoptee, suburban, hood…just got here or been here since the 1800s. Asian stretches from the Phillippines to Palestine, North China to Sri Lanka, Trinidad to Tibet, and all of it ends up in Toronto. We cover various artforms including writing, spoken word, music, visual arts, film, breakdancing, theatre and dance. We are currently running a drop-in creative writing workshop series in Victoria Park, and a theatre/drag musical program to be showcased during Pride Toronto 2012.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/asianartsfreedomschool/
asianartsfreedomschool@gmail.com
"Resolution" - A 25 page zombie story
imgur.comever so slightly NSFW
The 3 Pillars of Digital Storytelling
business2community.com
Directing digital storytelling? What does that mean exactly? The word says it all: taking charge and thus taking control.
(source: Business2Community)
Mobile reporting assignments curated
Here are most of your mobile assignments in Storify format.
Final product! storify.com/princessmedill… #dsmobile @cnewmanmedill @craignewman
Critical Mass Bike ride in Chicago
Bikers gathered in the Daley Plaza last Friday, like every last Friday of the month.
Evanston’s third Annual Autism Awareness Game storify.com/alexiamseverso… via @Storify #dsmobile
November 27, 2011 9:28:41 PM EST
I broke down my holiday weekend in a Storify timeline. Enjoy! wyominggirl.net/?page_id=102 #dsmobile
November 26, 2011 10:40:58 AM EST
From Lambert to O’Hare: #dsmobile
I was originally supposed to take the Amtrak to and from St. Louis for Thanksgiving. Alas, an unfortunate string of events (that turned o…
I’m liveblogging Thanksgiving travel. #dsmobile nkgoodrich.com/?page_id=66
November 27, 2011 9:05:26 PM EST
And the final product, exciting stuff: amandakoellner.com/?page_i… @cnewmanmedill @craignewman #dsmobile
November 27, 2011 2:55:21 PM EST
http://www.pkuyule.com/blogs/?p=74 #dsmobile
National Digital Storytelling
newdigitalstorytelling.net“What might be the biggest digital storytelling project so far began this week. Obama for America is an ambitious Tumblr site, aimed at aggregating stories generated by any Obama supporter over the next year.” If I share this, it affects the outcome. If I don’t share, it affects the outcome. Schrodinger and Heisenberg had days like this.
Are we over-engineering learning?
In my little corner of the world I actually get to see all aspects of the learning function - at least when it comes to training for adults.
So, what did I focus on this week? Let’s take a look at just a few of the programs, projects, tasks and obscure activities that took up my time:
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Met with an instructional designer about a web app that wouldn’t show up on an enterprise issued blackberry.
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Set up and attended meetings about the learning management system that recently went back up after a three month hiatus (due to a cyber attack) and backlogged the help desk to 8,000 tickets!
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Met with c-level leadership to discuss a new partnership that leadership has asked us to support by quickly turning around updates on over 100 classroom courses.Started close out on a project related to setting up a gaming portal.
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Wrote statements of work for three new projects.
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Met with project manager to discuss issues related to different contractors not communicating properly.
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Developed a draft enterprise mobile strategy and sent out for review.
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Met to determine raising the ceiling on a contract that supports all the learning products.
What is missing?
Did I mention content? adult learners? students?
No, not at all.
Sometimes I think we forget that we are here to support the learners. We spend all of our time setting up contracts, writing statements of work and proposals, worrying about learning management systems and proper help desk support. We worry about getting the right verbs in objectives and ensuring content matches exactly to the objectives.
But, as we follow all the processes, standards, procedures, systems, politics, communications, etc. - do we forget the main point?
I think we do. We could learn a lot of lessons from K-12 educators, creative geniuses on the internet, marketing folks, and storytellers.
It will be painful. It will require pushing a speed boat in the opposite direction while it is moving forward at 60 mph speeds.
But, baby steps will help. And, after a few baby steps focused on the right things..perhaps we can “turn the boat.”
Until then, I will reflect and blog so I don’t become a cog in this big machine.
“READING IN FOUR DIMENSIONS This is an interesting essay in a few parts that's worth getting hold of, even if you don't have a kindle - it's easily readable on various kindle apps, just because it's so slight. I'm not so much interested in reviewing this - it's very good, and written in a clear, relaxed style - as just adding a few thoughts about it, and the idea of reading works that exist as timed, almost performance pieces, with the help of the internet. A lot of space in this essay is given to discussing a blog that contains Samuel Pepys's diary, developing out over a number of years. This can be treated like any other blog, and read all in one go after the act (or in various visits every few months, going back through the archives) or it can be followed through RSS feeds and so on. But he also discusses fictional stuff going on on Twitter, and Alternative Reality Games, as things that only really work in the moment they're posted. I follow various fictional twitter feeds, but they're largely joke-based - I did follow the Such Tweet Sorrow project a while ago (an RSC thing where they got people to act out Romeo and Juliet on Twitter) but mostly more elaborately constructed Twitter things kind of pass me by. The ideas behind them often excite me, but the problem is - I use Twitter and stuff when I have time for it. I check it throughout the day, but in various moments where I'm catching up and only see what's just been posted. I have a job, and I can't dedicate my life to following exactly what's happening. Yes, to a certain level this can add to it - the idea that the work is unfolding in its own time, and not the readers, is kind of the whole point of it. But then there also reaches a point when readers with lives with schedules that don't fit around the work can't experience it, because going back through a Twitter feed after the fact is a different, clunkier experience. What if you're in another timezone? I'm in the UK, and a lot of this sort of stuff is happening overseas. It's exciting and an interesting newish way for us to engage with work - but this way of publishing, or even writing work needs to be thought about before we decide whether or not to tether our work to these reasonably inflexible systems. Do we want the people who can interact with our work in the way closest to how we intended it to be interacted with to always be those whose schedules are more like ours? Those who are the most like us? Because that's one of the outcomes of using Twitter and other social media sites to present stories in real time. And making your work only really accessible to those whose lives work like yours is a quick way of closing it off to a lot of valid, helpful scrutiny. It's an interesting trade-off, and I'm not sure what can be done to get around it.”
—Goodreads | Reading in Four Dimensions by Andrew Losowsky - Reviews, Discussion, Bookclubs, Lists
I wrote a thing about a book.
