Digital storytelling

A digital story is an online book of pictures which you narrate. Digital stories are a bit more hands on and interesting than just a power point or paperback book. It is an appealing way to create a story. For example, if you have a fourth grade class and you want them to construct a digital story on their own with minimum professional assistance, they will explore and open their creativity side of their brain. You would be surprised with the outcomes of the student’s digital stories. As one who has had the opportunity to work hands on with creating a digital story, I have been able to experience the fun creativity that goes on. Beyond this activity being fun, it is also a great educational example to the students showing them that they too can be a novelist in their own form. A simple story made with the new technologies today can mean a lot to one student. For example, imagine you had a class where your lesson was English based; you want to find a fun but educational way to get around teaching the students how to right sentences and create their own book or story without having to just right it on paper. With the digital story they will be able to first right it then illustrating and typing it up at the end. Once the work is done they are then able to keep the wonderful work they did and show it to their parents. A digital story gives the opportunity for both the teacher and the student to open up and use their thinking hats to create an amazing story. Beyond using the “digital story” for storytelling, this mechanism can also be used for presentations. For instance, if you were giving a presentation and wanted to get the crowd engaged you could simply move away from the traditional power points and narrate your own presentation. This would give the presenter space to be creative with not only his/her audience but also with his/her presentation. For instance, if he or she has a long day of presentations, they could narrate most of their presentation beforehand so that all they had to do is play their presentations with pre spoken narrations. A digital story is an online form of a story or presentation which can be utilized as a motivator for the students when they are learning how to write a story, they become the experts, they turn into the novelist!