Using Digital Stories
What are they and why use them?
Eda Gimenez, ePortfolio Student Consultant
View our Digital Stories of the Year and ePortfolios catagorized according to disciplines in the left menu.
Digital Story Rubric - DigitalStorytellingRubric.pdf
For both faculty and students, digital stories are an interesting and powerful part of reflective practice. This digital form of expression can provide essential support in facilitating reflection while promoting creative thinking and building multimedia skills. A digital storytelling assignment can transform a standard writing assignment into an experiencial adventure.
Digital Stories combine the elements of storytelling with multimedia components such as digital audio files, images, music and recorded narration. Usually 2 to 10 minutes in duration, the possibilities of what can be put into a digital story are endless. In fact, one can narrate something as personal as his or her goals and life motives or something as specific as course projects and assignments.
Here is a quick video about Digital Storytelling:
____________________________
Types of Digital Stories
In general, Digital Storytelling is comprised of seven key features developed by the Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) in Berkely, California. These are useful in that they provide a starting point in creating a digital story. These seven components are what typically make up a digital story.
Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling | |
1. Point of View | What is the main point of the story and what is the perspective of the author? |
2. A Dramatic Question | A key question that keeps the viewer's attention and will be answered by the end of the story. |
3. Emotional Content | Serious issues that come alive in a personal and powerful way and connects the story to the audience. |
4. The Gift of Your Voice | A way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the context. |
5. The Power of the Soundtrack | Music or other sounds that support and embellish the storyline. |
6. Economy | Using just enough content to tell the story without overloading the viewer. |
7. Pacing | The rhythm of the story and how slowly or quickly it progresses. |
Source: http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/7elements.html
Personal Narratives
Personal Narratives are a popular form of digital stories. These highlight various accounts of one's life. In designing a personal narrative, one can outline the struggles they face, the obstacles they wish to overcome, the goals and objectives they wish to achieve in the future, or reiterate a story about their lives and personal experiences. Simply put, digital stories can be used to describe who you are.
The benefits of personal narratives are plenty. In viewing personal narratives created by other individuals, students can discover the "unknown" side of a peer and diversify their understanding of the people that surround them. These, of course, can help individuals grow an appreciation for the people, the lifestyles, and cultures that exist their world.
Here are some of our great examples of personal narrative ePortfolios at Stony Brook University:
- Facebook's version of Digital Story Telling:
http://www.facebookstories.com/
- Harshdeep Banwait and Eda Gimenez:
https://stonybrook.digication.com/stony_brook_eportfolio_showcase/iMovie
- Arielle Dollinger: https://stonybrook.digication.com/arielledollinger/iMovie
- Dren Kullashi: https://stonybrook.digication.com/dren_kullashi/Digital_Story
- Brian Howard: https://stonybrook.digication.com/brian_howard/Digital_Story
- Emily Madsen:
https://stonybrook.digication.com/emily_madsen/Digital_Story - Addie Browning: https://stonybrook.digication.com/addie_browning/Digital_Story
Does it have to be a personal narrative? NO!
Topics and events can be put together with the digital story components. Dr. Imin Koa's ITS 102 produce podcasts based on an engineering topic. These multimodal research projects often combine the 7 components of digital story telling. A good example is Qing Yin's Project on Live a Better Life. He focuses on his love for nature and New Engergy.
https://stonybrook.digication.com/qing_yin/Project
The audio is soft in his podcast. Audio is the #1 problem students have with their digital stories. However, Qing has embraced the digital story components in his project.
The Digital Story format can be used with projects and assignments that don't involve personal narratives. At Stony Brook, the STEM disciplines are finding a use for this multimodal format. Suddenly, a flat research paper takes on dimension and becomes experiencial.