Digital Storytelling

Everyone has a story to tell, whether or not they have the means to be heard is something else entirely. A tall tale or a true account can capture an audience and keeping the audience engaged is crucial. Rather than presenting a slide show of rehashed names, dates, and events, digital storytelling is an excellent route to engage audiences and the creators with the subject matter.

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

If Higher Order Thinking Skills really get you going (and of course your administration), students that manipulate text, images, and their own creativity coupled with fact (or even fiction) come away with a deeper comprehension of the course material and that's just the final product. The process of making said digital story requires: teamwork, content knowledge, creativity, writing, editing, and the manipulation of 21st Century technologies, i.e, iMovie, YouTube, social media, Google products. When creating digital stories and other multimedia projects, just like a piece of creative fiction or an extensive research paper, students need to know that every word, every image, every sound, transition, and element MATTER. Instruct students to become directors, writers, and actors so that every image tells the audience a story; so that every line adds weight to the whole; so that every emotion and intonation can change the entirety of it all. These projects take time, but the knowledge, experience, and creativity far out weigh the time.

Check out this digital story as an example for digital storytelling. It explores an alternate perspective on the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, February 14th, 1929 during the peak of the U.S. Prohibition.