Digital Story Telling

Digital Story Telling

Date: 21^st Dec 2014
 

Story telling whether we call it an art, skill, or rewarded craft, in reality it’s all about sharing and interpreting experiences. It’s about sharing morals and lessons learnt in a unique way.

I just can’t stop myself from agreeing with Carol Birch who believes story telling strengthens imagination, and imagination opens doors for creativity. Heather Frost says that everywhere, every place people have told stories. He further adds the cultural wisdom that has passed down to generations due to these stories has enlightened, entertained and informed the spirits of modern day listeners. 

A few days back I had the opportunity to attend a Story Telling competition held at Potohar Campus among young children aged 3-6 years. I saw Carol Birch’s words put into action. It was an amazing dive into the world of storytelling.  Children dressed in colorful clothes confidently performed on various themes, left the audience mesmerized by their incredible performances. 

The script, background score, props, costumes, stage everything was knitted so well that not for a single moment I felt out of place. Rather I felt like being carried away in another world full of fantasy, where I got the chance to meet the caged parrots in the Amazon trying to set free, witness Aladdin doing wonders with his magic lamp, 21^st century version of Cinderella, where she meets Rapunzel and Snow White, met a happy cobbler who earned his living by working day and nights and how richness could not give him a peaceful sleep and so on.  It was an amazing journey where I got to meet loads of interesting characters, and got a chance to listen to their inspiring stories. The school was successful in providing young learners a platform to be confident and bold. 

Two teams had actually prepared a digital story about Cinderella and Frozen. It was a unique idea, young learners performing the act coupled with digital tools which added affects to the movie. 

This just inspired me to explore the world of digital story telling on the web a little. It’s a complete new world. Wikipedia defines it as a process by which people share their stories using digital tools.  It is an extension of the ancient art of traditional storytelling interlaced with digital media like sound, images, text, audio/video, animation making it interactive in nature. 

Another definition on the web says, digital story telling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, text audio and video to form a short movie, typically with a strong emotional content. 

I believe if digital story telling is meaningfully integrated with the subject content, teachers could use it for a range of purposes like developing expression and creativity among learners, enhance critical thinking,  improving their language proficiency, building their vocabulary, creating meaningful content, improving communication skills etc. For example students could create a story using PowerPoint, Moviemaker or PhotoStory 3 to describe the setting of a novel, illustrate poetry through art and narration, use a digital camera to explore how Math is all around us, describe an historical event, change the ending of ones favorite novel or story, explain how inventions are important to us and so on, the list of ideas is endless.

The process is simple and interesting. It begins with a rough idea, followed by exploration and research. Once completed, script is written, and laid down on a story board. Relevant images, video, audio are created or gathered to enhance the content ( this could be done using an array of digital story telling  tools available on the internet)all this is then put together to create a digital story and finally it is shared with the audience through any forum.  

While exploring the internet I came across a number interesting digital tools for storytelling. Some of them include the tikatok.com, story maker, story bird, and story Jumper etc. Tiktok.com is an interactive website and lets you create your own story book. You can choose from a vast image gallery or add your own images, and write prompts. Story maker lets you create any three stories online which include fairy, horror and science fiction. Learner can choose from the gallery of images, type name of character etc. story Jumper is another too which lets you create interactive stories. Learners can choose from photos, update photos from computer, add text, choose from a range of scenes, and choose from a dozen props etc. learners can print or publish their books. Zoo Burst is the best resource available online for creating digital stories online. Learners can actually create 3D pop up books. Learners share their stories online. This tool is not free and needs to be purchased. 

I believe digital story telling has the power to meaningfully engage learners. Technology has added a unique twist to storytelling and made it more interactive by weaving images, combining music, narration and voice together. The digital tools have given a complete new dimension to the world of storytelling. Our teachers could explore the tools to create innovative learning experiences for our learners. Some ideas to integrate digital story telling can be found on the link below:

http://ilearnyoulearnwelearn.wikispaces.com/file/view/Digital%20Storytelling%20Ideas.pdf/30739333/Digital%20Storytelling%20Ideas.pdf

Enjoy reading and explore the tools to open doors of innovative and fun learning for your learners J

Sheeba Ajmal

21^st  Dec 2014