Digital Story

My Scrapblog: A Tour of Western Europe

For better readability and to pause each slide, the full screen version is available here:
http://www.scrapblog.com/viewer/vw_full.aspx?sbid=2022600

If the embedded video does not work, here is the link to my Scrapblog:
http://www.scrapblog.com/viewer/viewer.aspx?sbid=2022600

Why Scrapblog was “the one”
Scrapblog was a digital story discovery that I stumbled upon during a Google search. I wanted to stray away from the tools presented in CogDogTools and experiment with other tools. My original options included Google Maps and Prezi. Google Maps and Prezi did not seem as suitable for this digital story. Upon finding Scrapblog, I knew it would be an appropriate social medium to present and illustrate an abbreviated story of my tour of Western Europe. Scrapblog innovates scrapbooking to the online version with blogging features. Similar to a scrapbook, users can arrange photographs and scrapbook elements as they wish in order to chronicle special events. The published Scrapblog can be embedded into a blog or shared on Facebook and Twitter. Furthermore, users may have their own copy printed out as a keepsake. In some ways, Scrapblog is itself a type of mashup where its scrapbooking elements such as stickers, backgrounds and themes are common to each paying and non-paying user who would like to reuse and remix works of art as they so please (Lamb, 2007).

How a storytelling approach would work in a class
The challenges of developing digital stories for an online environment are originality, copyright and privacy. Even while using Scrapblog, the only elements that were truly original were the photographs I snapped at particular locations along my trip. The rest of the scrapbooking themes, background, stickers, and frames provided really belong to Scrapblog. In a sense, a storytelling tool like Scrapblog does not offer users the ability to be 100% original since other published Scrapblogs can appear similar. Hirst (in Lamb, 2007) posits that a remix of digital content is more of an activity in republishing. Students may favor uniqueness in their projects so they should be able to choose from several pre-selected sites that have been screened by the instructor. Dependent on the age group, privacy concerns may arise from students and/or their parents. While expressing originality as best as possible, students must also be cautious about the type of information they provide in the online environment. If students choose to provide much of their own content for sharing, they should also be aware of intellectual property protection and Creative Commons licensing (Lamb 2007).

Tools like Scrapblog and YouTube provide more linear storytelling while Google Maps and Flickr may offer more non-linear or multi-linear storytelling styles. While students may be challenged more by multilinear storytelling approaches than linear ones, they may benefit from group work in one mode of storytelling than in another. For instance, multilinear storytelling may be better suited for group work where one student starts a story and the following students continue the story. Such storytelling may provide more originality and uniqueness. As well, other students and the instructor may follow the stories through the use of RSS feeds.