Digital+Storytelling

=What is digital storytelling? Exploring a concept.=
 * Students will think creatively, construct knowledge and develop innovative products using technology.**[[image:clapperboard(3).jpg width="206" height="220" align="right"]]
 * apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas and products
 * use technology for self-expression
 * recognize the interdependence and relationships within complex issues
 * identify trends and forecast possibilities


 * In this block of learning you will**
 * explore the concept of digital storytelling
 * use the seven steps to create a digital story
 * create a five frame digital story
 * post the digital story on your blog
 * respond and comment to the digital stories of your colleagues

"Digital Storytelling takes the ancient art of oral storytelling and engages a palette of technical tools to weave personal tales using images, graphics, music and sound mixed together with the author's own story voice. Digital storytelling is an emerging art form of personal, heartful expression that enables individuals and communities to reclaim their personal cultures while exploring their artistic creativity". From:[| Digitales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories]
 * A definition**

From Adobe's [|Digital Kids Club] Digital storytelling is not just for language arts! The stories being told by the storyteller do not all need to be personal memories or fictional tales. [|The Take Six: Elements of a Good Story] can easily be incorporated into non-fictional content storytelling to share what students know and understand about topics with a special twist.
 * Non-fiction digital stories**

Some great examples of non-fiction digital story telling with a twist are available on the DVD**, Looking Back: True Tales From Saskatchewan's Past**. Each school was sent a copy of this DVD in April 2005. Originally broadcast on CBC television from 1999 to 2001, Looking Back is a series of 44 stories retelling events from Saskatchewan’s past. Each true tale was filmed on location, often involving people connected with the incident in some way.
 * Suggested Use**: Grade 4 - Unit 2; Teacher Reference (preview before using)
 * Other Use**: English Language Arts 10; Canadian Studies

From Miguel Guhlin's workshop: Unleash the Power of Digital Storytelling
 * Benefits of Digital Storytelling:**


 * Engaging students, teachers in authentic ways that motivate reflection and revision at higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy (e.g. Synethesis and evaluation).
 * Content-area is addressed within the process students follow to create, transform their story from an idea to publication-ready product.
 * Technology Applications are addressed within the digital storytelling process.
 * Digital storytelling software tools are free and available on both Windows and Macintosh platforms.
 * A sense of larger audience compels students to do their best work in ways working for ONE teacher would not. Sharing student work with a worldwide audience is much easier. Teachers can use class blogs to make their students' work available and subscribable by a large audience. This enables teachers to have a repository of digital stories to use with their students in the future.
 * Publishing students' digital stories only invites dialogue and home-school communication among readers, all safely controlled within blogging software's comment features.
 * Safety issues can be addressed up front and controlled for in digital storytelling composition and publication.

Web-based Digital Story Telling Tools

 * Sharing Stories with a Global Audience**

Sherron Burn's Story, [|Incoming Call].
 * Flickr: Tell a Story in Five Frames**

Guidelines are not rules, but a formula that can be used to suit your creative imagination. Several avenues exist for story telling, such as journalistic reporting, sequential photos that reveal a moment, photographic poetry, and narrative. The following guidelines are for narrative.
 * Guidelines for Telling a Story** from [|Flickr's Visual Story Telling Site]

A good story has characters in action with a beginning, middle, and an ending. Fortunately a lot of information can be given in a single photograph, enhancing the limitations of five photographs for your story. Location, time, and atmosphere aid viewer imagination. Keep standards of pictorial beauty, but pack as many story telling elements in one photograph as possible to develop an action.

1st photo: establish characters and location. 2nd photo: create a situation with possibilities of what might happen. 3rd photo: involve the characters in the situation. 4th photo: build to probable outcomes 5th photo: have a logical, but surprising, end.

[|VoiceThread] Examples: [|La Bell Paris] by [|Allison Hawryliw], NBCHS; A Comic Life Project from Lawrence School media type="custom" key="165681"

[|Scrapblog] Examples: A Visit to [|Solar Gardens] near Saskatoon (unfortunately the video seems to go missing when the scrapblog is embedded in the wiki page) media type="custom" key="155857"

[| Splahcast] Example: A Visit to Solar Gardens near Saskatoon media type="custom" key="155855"

Video and Slide Sharing Tools
Video and slide shows are two powerful ways to tell stories and they can be even more meaningful when distributed to a wide audience. YouTube, TeacherTube and SlideShare facilitate sharing by providing a space where these files can be uploaded, stored and viewed by many. They also provide the code that enables you to embed specific videos or slideshows within your web page, your wiki page or your blog.... just as you have done with the photos above. At this point we have not created video to upload but you can search these sites and find many wonderful resources that you can embed in your wiki page or blog. //Embed at least one video or slideshow in a page: instructions are given below... don't forget... you can call me if you need help.//
 * When you and your students start to create video and audio productions, it is very important to read the instructions on [|how do I upload a video] to understand the specific requirements before you begin. e.g //Once you’ve finished editing your video, made sure it's less than 10 minutes, smaller than 100MB, and in an acceptable format, you're ready to upload it.// ||


 * Locate the video** you want... [|YouTube] or [|TeacherTube] are great places to start searching. If you want to add interesting and useful videos about cyberbullying to embed in your wiki page you may also want to check out the videos at [|Classroom 2.0] and [|Stop Cyberbullying].
 * Copy the //embed// code
 * Return to your wiki page and click on the TV icon [[image:Picture_26.png caption="Picture_26.png"]]on the visual editor tool bar
 * Paste the code in the window
 * Click save in the code window
 * Click save on the wiki page
 * You should see your video on the wiki page

media type="custom" key="165679"
 * PowerPoint slide shows** are great tools for digital storytelling and they too can be uploaded to the web and then embedded in your wiki or blog pages. This is a slideshow made by a Sasklearning professional development committee. The slideshow was uploaded to [|Slideshare] and the code copied and embedded on the wiki page.

A wonderful audio widget for commmunication and the immediate sharing of stories is [|yackpack], a walkie talkie widget for your wiki, webpage or blog. Talk to me when you come to this wiki page and if I am on the page I will answer you. This is a great way for students to connect with their peers in other communities and other countries. You may want to embed the widget on your blog. In Classblogmeister this is done in the 'general information' field in the control panel.
 * Audio Tools**

Later on in the school year we will learn about [|podcasting] and the opportunities it creates for storytelling. You will have a program called [|audacity] installed on your laptops which will require some face-to-face instruction.


 * Webpages** are also very useful for sharing content online. There may be a time when the collaborative nature of a wiki is not what is needed, nor the day by day journaling of a blog. You no longer need to know html or even how to use a webpage authoring program such as DreamWeaver or FrontPage to make an attractive, functional web page. Pizco and Google pages are web-based user friendly tools that provide templates for web page construction.
 * [|Piczo] has templates that appeal to younger teens
 * [|Google Page Creator] simple and easy to use - you can create a web page in minutes.... Example: Allison Hawryliw's [|page] made with Google Page Creator

Your first step is to learn how to tell a digital story yourself. To get started, I would recommend you actually take the time to tell a story that is personal to you, but that you would not mind sharing with the world at large. It should also be a story that is age-appropriate for your students. For example, you could pick a story of a particular object/heirloom that has come into your possession.
 * Preparing for the face-to-face session:**
 * Getting Started**

After you've decided on the story, select a few photographs or drawing/images that will help illustrate your story for readers. Write your story and compress it down to three to five minutes of narration. If you storyboard your story and pictures--you can [|use this template]--you will be able to match your text to images as you read.

[|JakesOnline]! - great PhotoStory III Tutorials [|Educational uses of Digital Storytelling] (Tutorials for PhotoStory 3)

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