Digital Storytelling

Over the past couple weeks, I have been working on a new project in Technology in Education! This project was definitely new to me, so I had to do a lot of research on how to create an affective storytelling project. One of the websites I looked into gave a great description of a digital story and it is what I kept referring to throughout the project. The website stated, “Designing and communicating information requires students to deepen their understanding of content while increasing visual, sound, oral language, creativity, and thinking skills. Making meaning out of an experience deepens the communication for both the author and the viewers. The author’s narrative voice is the center of all the multimedia decisions. The story’s narrative is first made into a voiceover and then all images, sound, music, transitions, and special effects are organized around unfolding this story” (Bernajean Porter). I find this explanation so helpful and I found myself definitely looking at this website for help while I created my own digital story. I decided to do my digital story about visual therapy. I had a hard time coming up with a topic because I couldn’t pin point one specific idea I wanted to go in depth about. I thought that my story of my experience through vision therapy at an older age would be something students of any age could look at and be able to relate to. It does not matter what age or grade the readers are in, all that is important is that they can watch the video and hear your voice and be able to take away something positive. While I was recording my voice, I had a hard time separating my ideas and my experiences into an easy flowing story. I wanted my voice to sound natural and easy going, so I made sure to video record my voice as many times as I needed until I got the result I was looking for. After I made my audio portion of the digital story, it was time for me to add the audio to Wevideo and start clipping together videos and photos that connected to my vision therapy story. I had a lot of fun looking for different photos that I thought would pair well with what I was saying in my audio portion. The whole point of adding your own voice and photos into a story is for students to be able to learn from visual, sound, oral language, and broaden their thinking skills. Not only is the storytelling technique productive for students to learn, but it is also a great way for teachers to get their students to become confident with speaking and talking about something that is personal to them. By having students record their own voices, they are working on oral presentational skills beginning at a young age. I love the idea of having my students work in a small group or alone to create a digital story to share with a classroom full of their peers. Whenever there is a presentation or video with a student’s own voice in one of my classes, I automatically zone in. There is something about hearing a story from the person who experienced it and having them explain it in their own words and voice. I find myself relating to them better and it also tugs on my emotional strings. I want my students to be able to experience not only how to create one, but also how to learn and become affected by hearing one. I think this is definitely one of the best ways to present a new story or personal story to a classroom full of egger students who are ready to learn.