Using Poetry and Digital Media to Tell my Story

To view my story, click here.

I would like to come right out and say that this was one of the most challenging and engaging assignments I have undertaken thus far in the ETEC program. This was my first time using technology to help tell a story, so I needed a lot of direction to help get me started. I started by looking into what features of a digital story would make it enjoyable to my viewers. According to the Center for Digital Storytelling to create a successful digital story one must take into account seven important elements: point of view, a dramatic question, emotional content, the gift of your voice, the power of the soundtrack, economy, and pacing (Lambert, 2010). Reading through this list I started visualizing some different ways I could construct a story with these elements in mind, but I needed some more information on how to get started. So next I decided to visit Alan Levine’s website, 50+ Ways to Tell a Story, in which he provides novice digital storytellers with an easy 1-2-3 process to follow. He made it seem easy enough; start by outlining ideas for a story, then find some media, and finish by selecting an appropriate tool to put it all together (Levine, 2010). However, as I would later find out, the process would not be as straightforward as it seemed.

After more research on digital storytelling, I found that the most popular reason for creating digital stories was to create a personal narrative (Robin, 2006). So I decided to follow this trend, and create a story of my life that would use some personal photos to help illustrate it. Aside from creating a personal story, I also wanted to have some continuity with my previous ETEC 565 assignments. Therefore, since my Moodle platform was based on a grade 7 poetry unit, I decided that I would use a poem to tell my life story. Ideally, I saw this project as something that my students could undertake, and so I wanted to make sure I used many of the poetic devices I presented in my online poetry unit. The final component to my story’s outline was to frame the story in a certain poetic style. Since I have always been drawn to the beatnik style of poetry, I decided I would use some of its characteristics to help give my story some artistic flavor.

The second part of the process was to locate the media I would use to illustrate my digital story. Because I was telling a personal story, I decided that it was best to use photos from my own private collection for the majority of images in the project. Apart from helping me to better tell my story, using personal photos would help me get around the many copyright issues that surround images found on the Internet. Although I did use some images from the Internet, I made sure that I downloaded them from Flickr, and that they were tagged under a Creative Commons license. It took quite a while to sift through my collection of photos to find the right selection that would best illustrate the major milestones of my life. Many of the photos from my youth were not in a digital form, so I needed to scan the photos and upload them to my laptop so that they could be used in my presentation. Once I decided on a final selection, I arranged them in chronological order and began writing a poem that coincided with each picture. This was a fun and creative step of the project, and one that I thought my students would thoroughly enjoy. Once I finished my poem, I had to edit it quite a bit to get it to a length that had enough important life events, but without dragging on too long and risk putting my audience asleep.

The final stage of the project was by far the longest and most difficult. First off, finding the right digital tool was a complicated task. I was hoping to tell my story using a timeline platform, but one in which would allow me to combine video, pictures, multiple audio tracks, and written text. It was also important for me to use a tool that was free, since it was my hope that my students could create a similar project, and from experience I knew that many would not have the resources to pay for the technology. When I searched through the tools listed on Levine’s website, I was quite disappointed.  None the tools had all the requirements I was looking for, and the ones that were close required that users pay for their products.

After much research, I decided that I would have to use multiple tools to get the job done (for free). For the timeline platform, I decided to go with Microsoft Live Media Maker (MLMM). This was a software program that all my students have access to, since it was downloaded on our district’s server, and it would allow me to mix video, images, and audio together into a timeline video. After I added my photos and video into MLMM I noticed it was missing some flare. So, to help me manipulate some of my timeline’s photos so that they contained text or other images that would help add a little more pizzazz, I used another software application on our district’s server, Adobe Photoshop Elements 9. Working with this application for the first time was not easy, as it took a lot of trial and error and quite a few video tutorials to help me work through the process. However, in the end, I learned to use the software enough so that I could create some modified pictures that will help better engage my audience.

Next on the list was to figure out the audio component for the digital story. I was hoping to create an audio track that would have music play in the background with my voice recorded over the top. This, I found, was not an option using MLMM, and so, after much research, I discovered that the best tool for this need was to download the free audio mixing software application, Audacity. Like Adobe Photoshop, it took quite some time to learn how to use it, but eventually I was able to create an audio file that had me reciting my poem over a looping jazz baseline that I sampled from the Esperanza Spalding track, the Peacock. Being that this project has, at all times, been for educational and non-profit purposes, and knowing that I would give proper credit to the artist in both my Moodle site and on Youtube, I was aware that the fair use exemption to copyright law would apply and am thus not concerned with potential copyright infringement (Educational Multimedia Fair Use Guidelines Development Committee, 1996). After reformatting the audio file using the online audio reformatting tool, Media.io, I was able to embed the audio into my video so that each verse played during its respective image. The final stage of the process was to upload my finished video to Youtube, so that I could embed it in my Moodle poetry unit where my students could view it at their leisure.

As mentioned, this project was a huge learning experience. It forced me to research the tools that would help me execute my idea.  It also required that I learn how to use the software with the necessary expertise that would enable me to produce my digital life story through poetry and to do so in a way that would engage my audience. Each step of the process seemed to bring new problems, but the challenges allowed me to thoroughly enjoy the journey. I have no doubt that my students would equally enjoy creating such a project, and now that I have gained more experience with these types of tools, I can assist them in the process.

References:

Educational Multimedia Fair Use Guidelines Development Committee. (1996). Copyright crash course. University of Texas Libraries. Retrieved from: http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/ccmcguid.html

Lambert, J. (2010) The digital storytelling cookbook. The Centre for Digital Storytelling. Retrieved from: http://static.squarespace.com/static/505a3ab2e4b0f1416c7df69a/t/51c3458be4b096e91f04d680/1371751819981/cookbook_sample.pdf

Levine A. (2007). 50 Web 2.0 ways to tell a story.  Retrieved from http://50ways.wikispaces.com/

Robin, B. R. (2006). The educational uses of digital storytelling. University of Houston. Retrieved from: http://digitalliteracyintheclassroom.pbworks.com/f/Educ-Uses-DS.pdf