Choosing the Right CBSE School A Comprehensive Guide for Parents
Introducing digital storytelling
1. Introducing Digital Storytelling
Digital Creativity, RSC London 23rd May 2012
Why are stories important?
Stories play an important part in learning as well as life in general. Stories are:
Universal – we seem to have an innate understanding of story which makes them a good tool for
communicating, especially between different groups.
Social – stories are meant to be told. In doing so they enhance communication between people, build
relationships and create opportunities of social constructive learning
Sense Making – we use stories to make sense of a complicated world. For millennia we’ve used myths,
parables, fables etc. to communicate highly nuanced messages in a simple way. Telling stories helps us
to explain ourselves or what we have learnt.
Memorable – remembering abstract concepts is difficult but by presenting ideas in stories we deliver
them in a package that someone can easily remember and recall later.
Entertaining – stories should be about getting an audience to respond emotionally.
What is digital Storytelling?
Simply, it is the telling of the story by combining various pieces of digital media. That’s all there is to it.
The idea was first developed in the US by Joe Lambert and Dana Atchley at what would become The
Centre for Digital Storytelling (CDS - http:// http://www.storycenter.org). They saw the possibilities of
using simple technology to help people tell their stories without having the skills to use the complicated
equipment and software professional media producers used.
So long as you are telling a story through digital means it qualifies as digital storytelling. Here are a few
of the more common forms
Narrated slideshows
This is the most common view of what DS should be. It’s the model that was developed by CDS. Using
software like Moviemaker or iMovie you can layer images on top of a recorded piece of narrative and add
in other elements like text, sound and music. Traditionally, these tend to be around 2-5 minutes long and
don’t use video, just still images.