Digital Storytelling: Tell Me a Personalized Story

A project that we were recently asked to do included the using a program call Microsoft Photo Story 3 which allows the user to create a digital storytelling session. As a typical literature nerd, I was both interested and skeptical of anything that claimed to be a method of storytelling in the digital age. From my perspective, and most students who traverse the classics path of literary studies, storytelling is something that one would envision as the bards of Camelot, the fantastic druids of old Ireland, or the way in which Chaucer constructs his Canterbury Tales. These are all prolonged storytelling session that, for the most part, are also accompanied by drinking, feasting, dancing, and often, music. This said, you can now see why I was skeptical as to how this would apply to a day and age in which people are becoming increasingly introverted, antisocial, and hidden behind the screen of a computer. However, I was actually quite delighted at this new evolution of storytelling.

Perhaps a necessary evolution in an age of audiobooks and eReaders...

In digital storytelling, the teacher or the students record themselves dictating the story, passage, poem, or miscellaneous literature of choice or assignment. However, this is not where the process ends. Instead, the users are asked to incorporate pictures and music to enhance their presentation - not unlike the Pecha Kucha (PAY-cha KEW-sha) phenomenon that is sweeping extended learning seminars across the country. With this, the user adds significant depth to their story. Music, as aforementioned, was almost synonymous with storytelling in the days of lore, so it is no wonder that the digital age would want to utilize this to their advantage. The pictures are not unlike props, masks, or other assorted things that actors would utilize in ancient storytelling and are certainly appealing to students who have become accustomed to image-overload with sites such as Imgur and Reddit that provide snapshots from across the world of all varieties and categories.

My love of flow charts is showing again....

As a future educator, this is, ironically, something I could see myself using with my students to not only entice them, but to further their ability to script coherent sentences, enunciate words properly, utilize proper grammar, and to increase overall eloquence. While the students might not realize it, a project such as this would assist them further down the road when they might need to give a presentation in front of an audience, create a tutorial video, or even direct a Webinar for a group of coworkers. It also hits almost every important aspect of a language arts classroom: reading, writing, speaking, and analysis. Not only that, the assignment avoids traditional essays and allows the students to interact with technology. What educator could ask for more?

Ah to be prepared for the challenges of being an adult...