Digital Storytelling: DS and Schools? payoff?

Posted by rjnagle

on 29 Mar 2007 9:26 AM

Hi, there, I stumbled upon your site recently, and it just so happens I know a bit about digital storytelling; in fact a university invited me to give a talk about the very topic in a month or two! (Truthfully, I've here looking for ideas about what to talk about).

I'll throw out some elementary topics for discussion.

What are the educational uses of digital storytelling by an individual?

From my standpoint, I see it as a means of creative expression, though not particularly a way to help students absorb concepts and to demonstrate mastery of them.

What learning tasks lend themselves to portfolios that involve DS to some degree?

DS means many things of course. What are realistic expectations about how much a single individual can produce for a class? I'm talking first about investment of time, but also access to technology. Schools have equipment and an infrastructure which students can use; schools can also facilitate collaboration in a way that individual production could not. To boil the question to 2 parts:
a)what tasks can learners/students be expected to do on their own?
b)what tasks are possible only with sufficient infrastructure and an organization suited to peer production?

Finally, labor vs. payoff. DS is cool, but in educational environments especially, the payoff has to justify the effort to produce it. Educationally speaking, what types of tasks have the biggest bang for the buck (i.e., fairly easy/fast to produce while paying pedagogical dividends to the learner and the learner's peers)?

Posted by theshenk

on 30 Mar 2007 3:03 PM

RJ,
This is a HUGE set of questions that are incredibly important. We can't answer them. Or at least not right now. I think this is something that many teachers and educators and administrators are trying to figure out when it comes to things like digital storytelling but also the arts in general and their place in k12 education.

Digital storytelling at least has some buy in due to the involvement of technology - that it's not JUST a creative writing curriculum.
And teachers are using it more and more across the country.

Two links I can send you to:

1. http://thenjournal.org/feature/61/

2. educational uses of digital storytelling

I hope these help!

- Daniel

Best, Daniel Weinshenker Special Projects and Denver Office Director Center for Digital Storytelling www.storycenter.org daniel@storycenter.org wk: 303.765.2641 cell: 720.635.1833

Posted by jcravens42

on 17 Apr 2007 10:26 PM

You don't need the latest and greatest tech tools to do digital story telling.

I put together short films using:
-- an Apple Mac running OS 9
-- a free version of iMovie that came with the Mac when I bought it back in January 2001
-- an old program called MoviePlayer 2.3.7 (version released in 1997) that I'd saved from my Mac Classic II. This program allows me to save movie clips from my digital camera in ways that iMovie will edit them.
-- an audio program called Audacity 1.0.0 (came with my iMic, version released in 2000; I bought the iMic so I could use a headset)
-- a Kodak digital camera bought in 2001.

I haven't done any films for work -- just personal stuff (lots of video of my dogs...), but the point is, you do NOT need sophisticated software and the very latest hardware to engage in digital story telling!

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