I first learned about digital storytelling from a teacher who teaches at the middle school level. I saw examples of his student’s projects and thought wow! I can easily take this to the elementary level.
Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the art of storytelling. Digital stories weave images, music, narrative and voice together.
Digital Storytelling can happen in any subject area and can be done using multiple technology resources. It is a great way to have students use all 4C’s for 21st century learning because the students are:
Communicating
Critically thinking
Collaborating
Creating
The most important piece about teaching Digital Storytelling is making sure the students are focused on the content, not just the technology.
Let your students explore the program that you are going to use first.
Storybird
Storybird lets you create web-based and printed books using a gallery of high-quality artwork. Directed towards younger students. Books can be embedded on a website, downloaded as PDF files or ordered as hard-cover books from the company. Creating a web-based book is free, and teachers can use a built-in classroom management tool to create anonymous usernames and passwords on behalf of their students.
You can organize students into different classes. The teacher creates the name and username. Students can change their password.
Students can collaborate on one story.
First you select a theme from a selection of tags. Then you choose the style of art and move images onto the page. Now you are ready for words to pour onto the page.
Photo Story 3
Photo Story 3 includes features that enable you to create a slide show with digital pictures, edit pictures, create your story with original music, add narration, and share. Photo Story is a very user friendly program and is available to download for free.
Step 1: Import and arrange your pictures
Step 2: Add a titles to your pictures
Step 3: Narrate your pictures and customize motion
Step 4: Add background music
Step 5: Save your story
Animoto
Animoto is an extremely simple slideshow tool that lets you make professional looking videos out of your own digital photographs. Their free version lets you make 30 second videos, but you can upgrade to their premium package to construct longer projects.
The emphasis in Animoto is visual effects
An example of Animoto is here: http://animoto.com/play/iQOvwUfX2C1K05WhSSNbPg
Reminders: There are lots of other programs for creating stories on line but the focus needs to be on developing a story along with carefully chosen images, voice and soundtracks. We don’t want students to just create a dazzling visual spectacle.
Thanks for the Storybird promo Tess! I also like Animoto, and will try to use it more often…
Doni
This was a great presentation, Tess! I am so excited with the possibility of kids writing stories for kids. They could incorporate multi-media into their storytelling and publish their stories in blogs. There could be an online repository for kids to publish their books. The kids could be writing their stories to be read by younger grade and age level readers. I just think this could be a very rich resource for young readers and teachers looking for ways to foster engagement with literature.