Digital Storytelling

     I spent a lovely day in Lake Geneva, WI yesterday with about 80 DEN educators from both Illinois and Wisconsin and my young, old friend Bernajean Porter. Bernajean’s site Digitales will be a frequent stop on this blog’s journey. Here are a few morsels from our very full day focusing on the the art, the craftsmanship and the making of classroom connections with digital storytelling.
  -At present there seem to be only three programs that have enough tracks or layers to allow video makers to add their voice, a guest voice, ambient sounds (sound effects), and music. They are Adobe’s Premiere/Premiere Elements for the PC and iMovie and Final Cut Pro or Express for Macs.
  -A simple way of gauging the quality of a story is to ask yourself if the student’s work is  “decorating, illustrating or illuminating.”
  -Along those same lines, is the voice “simply reading, reciting or performing the text?”
  -30-40% of the project time should be spent on the script.
  -A good, quick way to get the script ready for storyboarding is to set the word processor to two columns and to sketch out the images alongside the text in the blank right column.
  -And, above all, “What is the lesson learned?” !!!

     This, of course, has been a liberal condensation and over-simplification of hours of great discussion, but you can get a feel for these highlights of good digital storytelling by watching just about any of the videos on the Digitales site. For starters I recommend
  -”Da um jeitinho” Bernajean’s own story of solving her transportation problem on the farm.
  -"60 Seconds" changed the course of the life of an aspiring actress.
  -"A Dog’s Tale" as told by Ginger the dog.
  -For an in depth look and thorough explanation, you should read the book: Digitales: The Art of Digital Storytelling