SITE Digital Storytelling

Storytelling - thoughts on a working definition

2006-07-11T09:47:00.000-07:00

I know that for the most part this is saying nothing in reality, but I think it speaks to how nebulous the term digital storytelling is to many people and a wider description (and for academia one that is better than "stories made with computers") may be more useful, so in a recent post (see link above) I came up with this:

I think I've started to get a handle on how to stretch the boundaries of this form of storytelling and I think that the best way to think about it now is not a short story, or a short film, or a documentary or anything in between. The way that I would describe digital storytelling now is that it's a way to use a range of digital tools to connect with content or events and in so doing hope to move others to understand a little bit more.

Thoughts?

Digital Storytelling and EFL or ESL

2006-06-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

I'm teaching a group of graduate students in a digital storytelling workshop/seminar this summer at Iowa State. In the course I have several international students interested in using digital storytelling within their English as a Foreign Language and English as a Second Language classes at the public school level.

A challenge to our group: does anyone have any thoughts, links or resources that I could share with my students?

Thanks in advance

Cynthia

Da Vinci Code Digital Story Challenge

2006-05-17T23:03:00.000-07:00

Ewan McIntosh has thrown down a glove of challenge to digital storytellers worldwide concerning "The Da Vinci Code" book and movie. Get more details and accept the challenge!

The project wiki is open for editing and contribution links!

SITE Workshop

2006-05-03T08:47:00.001-07:00

I recently took the time to participate in the Digital Storytelling Workshop at SITE. I am new to the product and was very impressed. My question is - if we forgot to write down the number of our project we did at the workshop, is there another way to find it on the server. Also, once it is saved to the server can you go back and edit or delete a project? Hopefully someone reading this Blog can help me out as I am a newbie to this but would really like to learn more and use it with my student teachers.

Digital Soft-telling?

2006-03-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

Hello all. My name is David Jakes and I am the Instructional Technology Coordinator for Community High School District 99, in Downers Grove, IL, USA. We've had a digital storytelling program for almost three years in our district and kids have created some absolutely phenomenal work. I was formally trained at the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley and am a huge fan, as their work has greatly impacted mine, and in the process, impacted hundreds of students in my school district.

I recently read Wes Fryer's blog entry about Joe Lambert's presentation at SITE. Wes, as most of you probably know by now, is exceptionally talented and I look forward to his blog posts every day. In this particular entry, Wes captured the idea that some in academia felt that digital storytelling was "soft." I don't know who mentioned it or what the context was, but I felt compelled to respond.

Well, I've done just that on my blog as well as my weekly post at Techlearning.com. I would be interested in your thoughts and comments.

Joe Lambert Keynote on Digital Storytelling

2006-03-22T04:55:00.000-08:00

Please feel free to use this space to offer comments on Joe Lambert’s keynote: “Digital Storytelling—Giving Purpose to Pixels.”

Roundtable: Digital Stories as a Reflective Tool

2006-03-21T10:56:00.000-08:00

On Monday afternoon (4-5 pm), March 20, Dr. Helen Barrett, renown for her work in electronic portfolios, conducted a roundtable on “Digital Stories as a Reflective Tool.” The session was well attended, especially for a roundtable, with about 30 people. Dr. Barrett used a number of great digital stories to illustrate the points she made. Audience participants were quite diverse, which led to a healthy discussion on a number of topics related to digital storytelling as a potential tool for reflection: Exactly what is a digital story? Can the applications of digital stories as a tool for pedagogical purposes diminish its value as a creative tool? Are perspectives on digital storytelling culturally based? In a formal education environment, what systems could be applied to the evaluation of digital stories? What would a research agenda for digital storytelling be?

As with most good sessions, this one left me with more questions than answers. Would anyone who also attended this session care to comment?

Welcome to this blog!

2006-03-17T20:51:00.000-08:00

With the posting of “SITE Live” on the home page of the 2006 SITE conference website, it is likely that a whole new audience will be joining those of us who have been blogging about digital stories over the past couple of months. I’d suggest that you go through some of the previous postings to get a sense of the discussion that has taken place so far. (If you are new to blogs, the beginning is at the bottom (be sure you’re start with January).)

Although this blog was started to highlight digital storytelling at SITE (nearly 30 papers will be delivered on this topic!), I think you find an illuminating discussion on digital storytelling in general. Many people with a great deal of expertise have shared their knowledge and perspectives (I know that I’ve learned a lot). You should feel free to comment on any of the postings in this blog.

At this point, we are especially interested in your experiences as you join with us at the SITE conference. And, as you comment on the postings that are made on digital storytelling during the conference, keep in mind that you provide a window of opportunity to others who cannot be with us this year. So, if you can imagine the types of discussions that people have over a cup of coffee or a beer on what they experienced when they attend the various sessions, we’ll be doing just that type of thing through this blog. We’ll be having a “live” discussion on our digital storytelling experiences at SITE. In a word, please feel free to join in with us on this dialogue, and offer your comments on the postings during (and after) the conference.

Thanks,

Mike Searson

Another Joe Lambert interview

2006-03-17T20:41:00.000-08:00

In case anyone is interested in hearing more from Joe Lambert on digital storytelling prior to SITE, I thought I'd share the link to Tim Wilson's podcast interview with Joe that he posted earlier this week. :-)

The podcast is about half an hour long.

Continuing the Discussion

2006-03-12T18:43:00.000-08:00

As we are now just about a week before the start of SITE 2006, I would like to thank everyone who has participated in this blog on Digital Storytelling. Since it began in late January, it has captured the imagination of many longtime SITE members as well as those just beginning to learn about SITE. It has been truly exciting to witness the large number good ideas that have been posted and discussed by such a varied and thoughtful group.

Particular thanks to Joe Lambert for bringing his expertise not only to the blog but also to the conference to help us launch Digital Storytelling as a new topic area. It’s also exciting to see that there are more than 25 presentations on Digital Storytelling at the conference, including brief papers, full papers, roundtables, symposia, poster sessions, and of course, Joe's keynote on Wednesday morning.

The Digital Storytelling blog has demonstrated that SITE members can play a significant role in creating a community of practice and certainly, some of participants who only know each other by name and writing style will have an opportunity to strengthen the community when we meet in person in Orlando. But I would like to take this opportunity to ask each of you reading this to let others know about the blog in order to keep the conversation going, both while you are at the conference and when you get back to work after the conference ends. What we have seen take shape so far has produced a valuable resource on Digital Storytelling for novices and more advanced practitioners alike. And although the discussions have been varied and lively, they still have only involved a handful of SITE participants. We will be exploring ways in which to better publicize the blog on the AACE and SITE websites, but like all new resources, word of mouth can play a critical role in spreading the word. Let’s keep the discussion going!

Bernard Robin
University of Houston

Podcast: Joe Lambert Interview

2006-03-09T04:27:00.000-08:00

As you likely know by now, Joe Lambert, the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Digital Storytelling, has agreed to be one of the keynote speakers at the upcoming SITE conference. Joe graciously spent some time with me recently in an interview discussing his upcoming keynote and a number of other issues related to digital storytelling. You can listen to a podcast of the interview by clicking here. If you have a chance to listen to the podcast, I think you'll agree that we're in for a treat when Joe addresses us at SITE

Mike Searson

The time and assessment factors

2006-03-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

I think two of the biggest obstacles in convincing K-12 teachers to engage in digital storytelling with their students are the TIME and ASSESSMENT factors. First, teachers are already overburdened with curricular demands, and view multi-day projects like those involving digital stories as something they simply don't have time for. We have intense pressure (esp in our high stakes testing environment) to cover the curriculum and teach to the test rather than encourage in-depth student learning.

The second related obstacle is assessment. Administrators and teachers alike both want to know: Will this activity increase student performance on our state achievement tests? I am convinced students need to develop 21st century literacy skills which extend beyond the "3 R's," and engaging in digital storytelling can develop both traditional and "digital literacy" skills. But how do we "sell this" effectively to other educators?

Promise and Practice with Digital Storytelling

2006-03-03T11:26:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

My colleague, Kathy Swan from the University of Kentucky, and I have been exploring the use of digital stories in the social studies for that last few years. We've experimented with different projects both in our teacher education courses and in K-12 classrooms. We've focused primarily on facilitating the creation of short historical documentaries, but have also dabbled in working with students to create digital diaries, public service announcements, etc. We're intrigued by the potential of digital stories to be a rich, divergent opportunity for students to share their voice in creative ways. In our work, we've enjoyed seeing some really rich student products, but also recognize that much of what our students have produced have perhaps not warranted the time and effort invested in their creation.

We're increasingly interested in pursuing three interrelated questions:

1. How do we structure projects effectively to engender the kinds of products we hope to see (i.e. moving from electronic encyclopedia entries to engaging, insightful documentaries)?
2. How do we streamline the pedagogical process to both connect with core content standards and fit within the time and context restraints of the classroom?
3. How do we employ the technology in a way that is rich enough to enable divergent and creative expression and "clean" enough to enable students to focus on the substance of their work and not get lost in transitions, titles, etc.

We've begun a website - the Digital Directors Guild - to spark some conversations, bring together visions of the possible and offer opportunities for educators to ask questions and share their work. You'll see that it's in its beginning stages, but we hope it may serve as a useful resource for those exploring.

Our sense is that digital storytelling may be a powerful experience for students, but that we have a ways to go in terms of understanding how to best leverage this potential in the classroom.

I look forward to sharing our findings and learning about your experiences!

Mark Hofer

Which comes first, the story or the images

2006-03-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

I've had many discussions with undergraduate and graduate students about digital stories as reflective tools and one question always gets a lot of airtime. We always focus on story first, however as a digital society and the ease and convenience of taking digital photographs making each of us an amateur photographer, which comes first...

the story...or the images that spark the story ....

I've seen great examples of both and just thought I'd toss out the idea and see what you folks thought about it.

Another idea that I've been working with, can music become the voice of a story, letting the images speak for themselves

I've been reading too much lately...but the images seem to have a huge impact on the emotional or cognitive impression of the story that's being expressed.

any thoughts?

Cynthia

Bubbleshare as digital storytelling

2006-02-28T22:20:00.000-08:00

I feel very centered both creating digital stories myself and helping others create digital stories. I really think we should get serious about oral history projects around the nation, and engage students as digital archivists helping document and preserve the stories of the past via the voices of our parents and grandparents.

Digital storytelling can take many forms, and I am interested in web-based tools that permit direct sharing of digital stories over the Internet. I was recently introduced to Bubbleshare, which is a free website letting users upload photos and add voice narration (30 seconds to each image) using their computer's microphone and web browser. Very simple and very powerful!

I created a digital story with Bubbleshare describing a climb I made in 1993 in Mexico of a volcano south of Mexico City. I think Bubbleshare has great potential in K-12 settings for students and teachers quickly creating digital stories. I wish it integrated Creative Commons licenses directly, but maybe that will come in a future version.

Hello from the Left Coast

2006-02-27T21:04:00.000-08:00

Hey there folks,

Okay, somehow the blogger invite Michael Searson sent me on Feb. 2 got lost. Oh well.

Anyway, I dropped in tonight and this is an absolutely wonderful dialogue. Thanks so much to Glen for facilitating this, and I will try to get our educator friends around the world to check it out as the conference approaches, as well as try to post myself.

My small contribution is to call your attention to this site that appeared today in my email box. It comes from a broadband effort in Education in the East of England, and it is a most impressive interface for showing work, and the two movies I saw were quite wonderful. Check it out at http://story.e2bn.net/index.php.

Also someone mentioned we have a couple of places to see movies by our center, www.storycenter.org/movies, and www.silencespeaks.org, but also track the postings on our little podcasting experiment. I have posted three so far from the library and hope to post more and more over the days.

this ridiculous URL

http://web.mac.com/storyplace/iWeb/storyplace/Welcome%20to%20Storyplace.html
and then the user name: storyteller password: cdsguest

I look forward to seeing you all in Orlando.

-joe

From Alberta

2006-02-23T08:34:00.000-08:00

My name is Raj Boora and I'm a "Technology Professional Development Facilitator" at the University of Alberta. I'm interested in digital storytelling for several reasons. The first is that I have a passion for photography and videography and now that I have the tools to do both of these digitally, I have been able to grow and explore much faster than I would have been able to otherwise. Secondly is that I believe that digital storytelling, is really just storytelling using the tools that we have available today. The problem is that it is very easy to use and abuse these tools, so I am interested in this session to see how people get around the latter and make the most of the former. Thirdly, there are a number of faculty that I support that use or are planning to use digital storytelling as part of their research. Finally I truly believe that students/millenials are very much more inclined to a number of literacies made possible by digital technologies that our current generations of teachers and pre-service teachers are almost oblivious to, so I want to see what others are doing to help teach the teachers.

Digital Storytelling and Literacy Autobiography

2006-02-19T07:07:00.000-08:00

Hello! I very much appreciate the invitation to join this blog. Thank you.

At the SITE conference, I and my colleague, Jing Qi, will hold a roundtable discussion on a project in digital storytelling we undertook last Fall. In this project, we collaborated with a middle level pre-service instructor who teaches a course called Teaching Young Adolescents. The course calls upon students to reflect upon their personal journeys in literacy and asks them to write an autobiography about themselves in these terms. We decided that digital storytelling would be a wonderful way to take one of the small moments in this journey and expand it.

At the conference we'll share some of the end products of this assignment. We were very pleased with the results but had moments of doubt when the logistics of handling these projects caused students a fair amount of stress. Nonetheless, when finished, students were very pleased with their efforts.

We all agree that adding the elements of images and music to the student narratives took their stories to another dimension that would not have been visible by simply reading the narrative. We want to explore this more fully in a future project next Fall.

This roundtable discussion is scheduled for Wednesday, from 4-5:00 p.m. in Lake. I look forward to meeting many of you at the conference and am interested in learning additional ways in which pre-service teachers are using digital storytelling for reflection.

-- Sandy Lathem
The University of Vermont
Portfolio Connection Grant - PT3

Photo Therapy - SITE Digital Storytelling

2006-02-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

This story was originally posted as a comment under the Dutch Digital Storytelling thread ... and I've added a further reflection at the end:

Here's a slightly different version of digital storytelling that might be able to be adapted to other situations!!

It's amazing how you can be convinced of the real value of authentic digital story telling experiences before you are even aware that the experience has an 'official' title or is even related to this growing area of interest.

Photo therapy!!

A term I coined to refer to an experience I had during the last few months of my older brother's life just two years ago!

The short version of the story:

His cancer became debilitating during my last visit with him. I had a new digital camera and created a 'slideshow' of everyday things he could no longer participate in on the farm. His two daughters and I did some fencing - we took pictures. We fed the animals - we took pictures. We acted like idiots (only occasionally of course!) - we took pictures. Everything we did ... everyone we met ... every visitor ... every insignificant event on the farm - breakfast - egg gathering - repairs - shed cleaning - cow patties - sunsets ... we took pictures.

Each evening after dessert - the slideshow on the computer revealed the activities and the idiocy of the day - Greg was fascinated with the technology and the fact that he was being involved in the things he could no longer do - he felt connected again to the things he loved - he lost that 'lost' feeling.

Before long, dessert was by passed in order to get to the daily slideshow more quickly. It became a social event everyone - EVERYONE - began to depend upon. It became a record of events none of us could control and all of us had no choice but to be involved in- it provided some comfort - some caring - and something positive to do.

I left with my laptop and camera, but while he was still mobile, he used his own desktop computer to view the slides I had loaded on his hard drive - when he could no longer move to the computer I sent him about 60 8X10s of his favourite photos among the 3000 or so photos we took during those last two months. He arranged them on the wall of his bedroom at the foot of his bed in the most artistic and aesthetic way he could - he changed them frequently ... different order, different groupings ... he immersed himself in the faces and the events of his family and his daily life in this way. He was in control of something!

In the dead of night - at its darkest - country dark - nothing but starlight - his wife woke at three in the morning ... a beam of light broke the darkness next to her and illuminated each of the portraits on the bedroom wall one by one - Greg was giving himself a slideshow using a flashlight - he was connecting again - reassuring himself of his place, his history, his existence.

Less than a month later, Greg's girls, his two daughters, each received a digital camera for their birthdays and continued the photo production and the photo therapy!

He was gone shortly after that.

What was left was an enduring collection of memories, a sense that all had benefited from the experience - not just Greg - but those who cared for him - nursed him - loved him, and who otherwise might have felt useless and unable to contribute in the face of his inevitable fate - or his 'last appointment' as he referred to it ... somewhat defiantly.

This was phototherapy in all of its 'therapeutic' connotations.

The thinking of Kubler-Ross in her seminal work - On Death and Dying - added a solid theoretical framework within which one might explore further the boundaries of this form of therapy as it applied to dealing with a terminally ill patient and for those who were carers in the situation.

This was a timely - opportunistic - development of digital story telling that arose out of a clear and very 'authentic' need in a very emotionally laden situation.

The technology made this a possibility - the human condition created the application - the need to do, to apply, to understand, and to learn, created an opportunity that developed another form of a learning community that worked, was effective, and lasted for as long as it was needed. It will be used again when the time is right.

The girls ... Greg's two daughters and Gai, his wife, have since featured in a story in an outback country Australian newspaper talking about their role as carers and what they learnt in the process - all for the benefit of others and to turn an otherwise difficult part of the life process into a more positive and understood process... phototherapy - our version of it - stood prominently at the core of that 'story'.

Happy to add more detail and more reflection if you are interested.

Ian

... and a subsequent reflection ...

Seems that the more I think about the degrees of impact this experience has had on all of us who shared the intensity of Greg's death, the emotional binding that resulted from the shared experience, and the deeper understanding we each had about our roles in both the life and the death process, the more positives we have been able to extract from it.

Clearly, nothing will remove the sense of loss, the real and daily feelings of missing him in our lives, but it has also allowed us the sense (and in an unspoken way, the relief) of knowing that we did contribute quality and add great value to Greg's (and our own) life during that period.

Apply that response to the daily responsibilities we have to our own students, and our own learning process, and the need to make what we do authentic, positive, and engaging becomes ever stronger!

Kids (all of us) have stories as poignant, and as potentially meaningful and 'impact-ful" (sorry :-) ) as this story has been for me and for my family. Our job as learners and teachers is to tap that meaning and make it work for the benefit of the learners who rely on us for helping to construct their views of the world and their place in it!

Encourage your learners to get 'personal' as they participate in constructing their own learning ... and your contribution to that process is to construct a safe learning environment in which they can be personal - where they can be safely vulnerable - and where the value of their own stories is respected - and by inference - where they are respected ... and you will guarantee motivation, engagement, and authenticity in learning ... and the impact of phototherapy will continue to be positive, and it will be remembered!

Ian

Dutch Digital Storytelling

2006-02-13T09:11:00.000-08:00

Hallo!
Let me introduce myself.
My name is Renée van der Linde.
I am a tutor at the Faculty for Education 'Hogeschool Utrecht' (www.hu.nl). I am member of a research circle 'New Educational Methods and Didactics' and devolped serval courses for bachelor and master tutors. These tutors educate students at the the teacher trainer school for primary education, secondary education, special needs or students of the master of education.
Since September 2004 I am involved in the training Digital Storytelling. Digital Storytelling as a part of a wider concept called 'Life Learning'; learning in the real world next to the classroom.
The main goal of training Digital Storytelling for the tutors is the answer to the question 'how can we bring the multmedia competences of our students to a level of education?' Focused on the study traject of the students self and a focus on the children and youngsters they will work with in the future.
At the moment I am writing a book about Digital Storytelling (in Dutch...I am sorry) and next to the book there will be a website. Hans van Bergen creates the website. You can have a look at it: www.hansvanbergen.info/dst/

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Beyond Words: Content as Learning Stories

2006-02-09T15:24:00.000-08:00

I have been working this past year to take the digital storytelling genre into classrooms for content learning. As part of my book, DigiTales: The Art of Telling Stories, I developed a chapter called "Storying Around for 21st Century Skills." As many of you know, stories are not always about language arts or telling personal tales. However many other educators see digital storytelling as an extra when they have time - who has extra time these days except trailblazers?

Turns out there are a dozen digital storytelling skills correlated with ISTE standards, 21st Century Skills and state standards. But the most exciting BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) for me was the connection of the structure of story to deep understanding and retaining information. Roger Shanks has the best research for this information. Stories as Understanding is the angle I am using for training teachers, introducing new school-wide curriculum, and making strong connections to content learning. If you use the concept of including lessons learned into digital stories rather than talking ABOUT information - communication products can be transformed from summary reports to describe and conclude. This strikes most teachers as a natural place to take students without dumping other school expectations.

I am just gathering the first student examples of this type of work - so many student projects are still summary reports! Any examples I find are posted at www.digitales.us --> StoryKeepers Gallery --> Beyond Words. Please let me know if you have any student examples to share that might be posted for teachers to understand how this might work in their classrooms. I am so enjoying this area of my DigiTales training for teachers.

bernajean@digitales.us

Dutch Digital Storytelling

2006-02-08T06:45:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

To introduce myself: I am consultant Education and ICT at the Education Department of University 'Hogeschool Utrecht' in The Netherlands. (www.hu.nl)
For a couple of years now we are active with Digital Storytelling and very enthousiastic about the possibilities for learning students.

In our department, Digital storytelling is a subject that Renee van der Linden teaches to master students.
I have asked Renee for some material for this Blog. She will publish here as soon as possible.
In the mean time we are developping a site, wich is in Dutch, but you can take a look on www.hansvanbergen.info/dst/
The link 'voorbeelden' will lead you to examples of digital stories from our students. There is hardly spoken word, so you might understand most of it.

I March I will visit Site conference and hope to learn and talk about Digital Storytelling then a lot.

If you have any question, please let me know.
Looking forward to meet you,

Hans van Bergen (hans.vanbergen@hu.nl)

Digital Storytelling and the classroom connection

2006-02-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

Hello all,

I got 'hooked' on the idea of digital storytelling when Glen Bull visited Iowa State a few years ago, since then I've been emersed in the history, ideas and potential of this twist on storytelling and meaning making. As I prepare to do my dissertation I am planning to look at two areas related to digital storytelling and education. My first study will look at teacher education students and the use of digital storytelling as a piece of the reflective process. So often the use of images and my own blogs, journals and notes have helped me reframe a teaching or learning experience so I am excited about working with students doing their practicum work in the classroom as they face unexpected situations, the joys associated with teaching and the insecurities that come with being a new adult in a well established classroom.

The second study that I'm working on deals with students in the classroom and the use of digital storytelling as a sense making activity and a method of authentic assessment. Through my involvement with various classroom groups I've seen the motivation piece and the collaboration that takes place as students work together to tell a story of their learning rather than take a test or write a report. I've been reading Roger Schank's work among others and am excited to explore the digital piece of the sensemaking puzzle.

I was almost ready to post a bit about Joe Lambert and his SITE keynote when I read the posting about the international perspective that digital storytelling has taken over the years. Although each site has its own focus, Joe has kept involved and abreast of projects across the globe. The great thing about Joe is his open minded attitude and willingness to share with everyone the interesting projects that he comes across in his travels. I look forward to hearing him speak at SITE and basking in the glow of his deep committment to digital storytelling.

I'll share a link from the most recent Digital Storytelling Association listserv....

http://storycatcher.net/

I've ordered the book, recommended by Joe Lambert and will keep you all posted as I read it.

happy storytelling,

Cynthia

International Flavor!

2006-02-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

Hi Everybody,

Just wanted to point out that digital storytelling is truly a world-wide initiative. Here are a few sites that give you an international flavor on digital storytelling:

Australian Centre for the Moving Image

BBS Digital Storytelling—Capturing Wales

(Be sure to look for the Shoebox stories in this project!)

CDS brought its "Silence Speaks"project to South Africa last summer, and produced some remarkable stories:

Truly international (native languages)
Swedish
Welsh

Mike Searson

My Sister's Memories

2006-02-03T09:06:00.000-08:00

Glen,
Having reviewed the first five or so blog postings and marveled at the wonderful digital story and resources provided thus far, I feel honored to have been asked to contribute to this blog. Briefly, I have always been interested in video production and have thought for some time now that digital camcorders might become a true democratic tool for students, teachers, educators and citizens because of the ubiquitous and universal nature of this technology in our society, and now, even more because of the continued falling prices and almost universal availability of the editing software itself.

Last spring, I taught myself how to use Pinnacle Studio 9 Plus, a digital editing program. As I was doing so, I thought what better way to teach myself than to create an authentic project of my own, so I asked my sister, Patricia, if she would be willing to "tell her story" on camera to share with her immediate and "distant" family members. Patricia has been a long-time cancer survivor, who, dispite the fact that she is still undergoing treatment, agreed to do this. The result: a 14:30 minute digital story which depicts the primary joys in her life, her family members. My sister narrates throughout while "on camera" with frequent "cut-aways" to family photos she has collected over her lifetime. Her story was "burned" onto DVD, which I duplicated for her, her daughters and young grandchildren, who now will have permanent records of their loved one. This March at SITE I hope to share at least part of my sister's digital story, "Pat's Memories," with conference attendees, time permitting.

I teach a graduate course in Educational Technology to pre- and in-service teachers and have them create digital stories of their own. My goal ultimately is to have my students create videos that not only "tell stories" that are personal, but are also subject-matter content related. In my view, once students and teachers learn some basic principles of photographic and video literacy, then can begin to apply them in systematic and create ways in order to create products that possess pictorial continuity and well as inform, educate, and excite teaching and learning.

Teacher Candidates and Digital Storytelling

2006-02-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

Teacher candidates were provided the opportunity to learn, plan, and facilitate a one-on-one learning experience with elementary and middle school populations of “at-risk” learners in order to inquire, construct, and create their own story using I-movie technology. This powerful field experience allowed all populations involved to be actively engaged in a collaborative process. The students constructed their own story blended with content from across the curriculum, based on the teacher candidates’ area of certification and the diverse learner’s imagination. The multidisciplinary lesson incorporated perceptions from the eyes, ears, and reflections of researchers, teachers, learners, and parents, while using the university environment as a catalyst to challenge the minds of our future leaders. Reflections were aggregated from digital interviews, and exit surveys of all participants including parents in attendance. Researchers’ multiple perspectives added validity to the outcome. This project captured the “big picture” of how to enhance imagery in order to learn content-based curriculum using technology in the classroom. Teacher candidates were provided this avenue to actually experience the teaching and integration of technology through a workshop that lasted only 3 hours. In this short span of time they were required to introduce a set of images and ask the student to create a "story" using some or all of the images provided. Once storyboarding was complete the teacher candidate instructed the student on creating a movie with iMovie.
Teacher candidates are required as part of this Technology integration/methodology class to perform field experiences. Since the class was held during the summer months actual field expereinces would be impossible. Therefore the workshops were designed to replace the field experiences.

We were very pleased with the results as all students created an iMovie and subsequent contact with the students and teacher candidates have revealed a continued interest in what was created.
We plan to continue to monitor the participants as well as set up a workshop of these students with their parents to see how many have retained enough knowledge to teach and create movies together.

What began as an opportunity to provide meaningful learning experiences for the participants is evolving into a longitudinal study of retention, technology usage by the teacher candidates as well as a continued interest in digital storytelling. We do not have a website with our information as the hurricanes we have experienced have severly delayed actions taken with this study.

Digital Storytelling in K-12 Classrooms

2006-02-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

I'm looking forward to all of the Digital Storytelling options at SITE - Thanks to Glen and others! Digital Storytelling has become an integral part to my undergraduate/graduate courses in reading and technology. However, my real interest is then the next step - how do these students take Digital Storytelling inito their own K-12 classrooms. One of my graduate students, Stacy (now teaching in Aurora, IL), designed an action research project around Digital Storytelling with a 7th grade language arts teacher. Stacy developed the curriculum and then, she and the teacher worked with 70- 7th grade students (working in groups) to develop digital stories. Orginally, the focus for the digital stories was human rights issues and how these issues relate to families, but that focus shifted for the study group to Everyone Has a Story to Tell and We Will Help You Tell It. The entire unit was aligned with the classroom's literacy standards and benchmarks and assessments were developed to gather these results. Topics students chose to address were very personal - Adoption, Hemangioma, Kids and Drugs, Tourettes, Bone Cancer, etc. I think you'll find the project interesting (especially Stacy's reflection piece) and invite you to browse it - Digital Storytelling in Middle School Classrooms.

I'm happy to report the 7th grade teacher is implementing the Digital Storytelling project again this year, even without the support of Stacy! Last year during a focus group session one student commented, "Writing a story you are just saying it. You don't have any pictures to go along with it. And if you have the iMovie you can see it and add music to go along with it. It is kinda like you have a book and then you have a pop-up book that is more intersting." The insights into Digital Storytelling from the perspective of a 7th grade student!

Denise Schmidt

Thank you

2006-02-01T12:29:00.000-08:00

Dr. Bull,
I would like to thank you for the invitation to join this blog. It will be fun and interesting to share ideas. I also look forward to learning from the experience of others, in what seems to work best and possibly what hasn't worked well at all.
I also look forward to attending the SITE conference and learn more about the many possibilities of digital storytelling. I believe we 've only scratched the surface.

Thank you
Dayle

Favorite Digital Stories

2006-01-30T10:38:00.000-08:00

Thanks for getting the blog started. One way that we might facilitate the discussion is by sharing some of our favorite stories. One of my students created a story I really like. It's called Almost Paradise and it tells about how her family came to the US from South Korea. We've been using Microsoft Photo Story 3 to create many of our digital stories and they are best viewed on a PC running Windows XP. To watch the story on a PC, go to: http://www.coe.uh.edu/digitalstorytelling/stories/almostparadise.wmv

Macintosh users should use the Safari Web browser and go to:
http://www.coe.uh.edu/digitalstorytelling/stories/almostparadise-mac.wmv

I would like to hear what others think of this story and also would be interested in watching some of their favorite digitial stories.

Bernard Robin
University of Houston

Great Blog!

2006-01-29T16:17:00.000-08:00

Glen,

Thanks for setting up this blog. It will allow those interested in digital stories to gain from this blog prior to, during, and, I assume, after the SITE conference. As you indicate, there is an impressive array of presentations scheduled for this year’s conference. And that’s due to the leadership of SITE, which moved quickly in response to those of us advocating for a focus on digital stories. In fact, it is an area that SITE has worked on for several years now, beginning with work on digital images.

However, this year’s conference, with the quality and quantity of presentations on digital stories is unprecedented for this topic. In fact, if you search for “stories” you’ll find about another half dozen beyond the ones you identified.

Before ending, I just want to recommend a link to the readers of this blog that provides a rich sources of references and materials on digital storytelling. Of course, there are many other links to digital story resources, but this is a start.

I look forward to the discussion that will be promoted by this site.

Mike Searson

SITE Digital Storytelling

2006-01-28T09:25:00.000-08:00

Digital Stories are short digital movies created by students that incorporate images, sound, and a narrative in the student's voice. Educators are increasingly employing digital stories in a range of disciplines from science to social studies.

The SITE conference includes a strand on digital storytelling, with more than two dozen presentations anchored by a keynote address by Joe Lambert.