The link to my DS is 
I have made the digital story to support the theme of the LMS created for this term project. There are many ways to tell a story.
There are many reasons why stories are used.
In one sense a story is a journey that engages for the purpose of conveying some form of message.
It made the most sense to me to use this digital story opportunity to focus on:
- the audience for this course – who were they? what would their main concerns be?
- state a problem they may be experiencing – ‘doesn’t it make you crazy when . . . ‘
- inform of some kind of solution or expertise,
- clearly show the benefits of that solution,
- invoke some kind of action from them – sign up now or act now
I wanted to keep it short. Most people don’t have time for epics, no matter how creative they are.
I wanted to keep it on topic. Keeping the content focused will help the viewer be convinced that the content is useful (or not) for them.
I also wanted it to be succinct. Conveying the essentials is both bait and net. In this case, it communicates the message that, “You could have more of these helpful tidbits if you signed up for this course.”
To create this digital story I used the tool PowToon. I have never used anything like PowToon. Creating a “storyline” with animations, music, pictures, and text is very complicated. The more streamlined it looks, the more effort went into the product. Timing the text and movements of the characters is a trial and error process. Choosing music that doesn’t detract from the overall theme is time consuming. Selecting size of image or word that won’t over-power or weaken the message is daunting. Having the list from Mayer’s (2009) that was in the Bates (2014) article was very helpful to refer to.
I can see how having a team would enrich the content/message. I can also see how this type of tool can capture what scores of pages of text could not. I would like to see where else this would/could be effective. I would like to try other tools, to determine the effectiveness of the features that accompany them.
Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)
Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed). New York: Cambridge University Press.