The University of Houston tweaked the 7 Essentials of Digital Storytelling from The Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) in Berkeley, California to apply more directly to educational use of DS.
Their 10 criteria are as follows:
1. The Overall Purpose of the Story
2. The Narrator’s Point of View
3. A Dramatic Question or Questions
4. The Choice of Content
5. Clarity of Voice
6. Pacing of the Narrative
7. Use of a Meaningful Audio Soundtrack
8. Quality of the Images, Video & other Multimedia Elements
9. Economy of the Story Detail
10. Good Grammar and Language Usage
That's a lot to consider, but I am not afraid to start somewhere.
One consideration when making digital stories is maintaining copyright and fair use. Fair Use seems to give teachers and students a considerable amount of leeway in using pictures and sound they find on the internet. The main "no-no", as far as I can tell, is publishing work on the internet if it contains elements that are copyrighted and for which permission was not sought to use them. So, be careful posting to your class webpage! There is a lot that you can do within digital story telling that does not infringe on the law, as long as people who view it are doing so for educational purposes, so restrict access to places where the viewing purpose is educational.
It is important to consider that many digital stories do not include copyrighted elements, and therefore can be posted as the author wishes. There are also many options for music and pictures that are free to be used as you wish, so long as you don't take credit for the original works.
One of the most helpful resources I found is the Digital Storytelling Guide by Silvia R. Tolisano, in which she details how to use several programs for digital storytelling: Audacity, Wordle, GoogleMaps, Photostory, Mixbook, Voicethread (My favorite), and MovieMaker.
Here's the link to that instructional gem, as well as links to her students' examples of the use of them.
http://langwitches.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Digital-Storytelling-Guide-by-Silvia-Rosenthal-Tolisano.pdf
As I venture the starting process of creating my digital story story for our class assignment, I enjoyed browsing through the websites that you located. The How to Guide for Digital Storytelling is a very detailed list of how to access resources and to create a good original piece of work yourself. Thanks for sharing such a valuable document with all of us!!
ReplyDeleteSusan,
ReplyDeleteI am with you...overwhelmed. However after reading this blog and the hints about how to get into the right mindset and the steps to take to get ready, I feel better about the project. After checking out the links you posted, I can now begin to visualize how I will complete some of this project. Copyright is something that we must all be aware and respectful of when completing projects...Media Specialists must lead by example. Thank you for the link and the tips to getting started, they helped ease my anxiety somewhat :).
I feel the same way, but I am looking forward to looking more into the links you have provided and seeing how I can go about creating my digital story. I like the idea of using others to help with creating these stories and students helping tell the story would be a great way for them to get involved in the process and make the work load easier for others. Great tips and thanks for sharing your resources.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing about the way that Mrs. Rodriguez's Spanish Class was using digital storytelling to practice their speaking and fluency skills! I always found that speaking aloud is one of the most difficult areas of a foreign language to practice because students aren't confident in their abilities, but by having the students create digital stories in Spanish, Mrs. Rodriguez gave them a way to practice speaking in a low-stress environment (NOT in front of their peers.) The fact that, with a digital story, students wouldn't have to save the audio until it was exactly how they wanted it would increase their time practicing. I love this!
ReplyDeleteI also appreciate that you included many programs that are used to create digital stories. I've used PhotoStory, MovieMaker, Audacity, and Camtasia. In my opinion, PhotoStory is the easiest to use, but Camtasia allows users to do a lot more with their video and audio. I would love to try MixBook, VoiceThread, and Wordle. Thanks!
I'm afraid that "fair use" is often misunderstood among teachers. It allows for small portions of works or pictures to be reproduces for educational purposes, but, like you said, not posted on public internet sites.
ReplyDeleteWhen introducing this concept to teachers, it might be a good idea to retrain on Copyright laws and fair use provisions.
I think teachers and students will love this idea once they get into trying it. I can't wait to complete my own digital story for class - just to see if I can do it as well as some of the examples I have seen online.
I love your post. I will definitely use the ten criteria. Students must be taught what is meaningful and what’s not. There are so many sites and material out there until Sometimes it’s hard to choose. Teachers should somehow narrow down the choices. At times when my students create projects or even work on activities on the web, I pull everything they need into a folder on the desktop so they will have all the sites, programs, and graphics they may need. This helps save time as well.
ReplyDeleteI liked the 10 criteria-thanks!. I will have to admit that I am a bit overwhelmed with the digital story assignment. I have used digital storytelling in my classroom-but never exactly like this assignment. I never gave my students the entire tool-kit. I made them find the resources on their own-and I'm not sure I agree with giving it all to them-but that is a matter of opinion. I also agree that copyright and fair use are a very touchy area and it's hard to get a student to understand why they can't use everything they find. There is so much material out on the net that it can be overwhelming for some.
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