Digital Storytelling

Finally getting around to thinking about packing for NECC San Antonio. Looks like plenty of digital storytelling sessions for us to be inspired at (including the American Film Institute, of course). Wes Fryer over on “Moving at the Speed of Creativity” has put together a Ning and a Wiki for people interested in projects and tools. There’s also a birds of a feather gathering to get an ISTE Storytelling Corps special interest group started. As Bernajean Porter puts it in her announcement email:

This summer’s Birds-of-a-Feather session at NECC (Monday 4:45 PM Rm 103B) will be organizing the future ISTE SIG group for digital storytelling. This group will be actively launching an ISTE Storytelling Corps as their first community service project for engaging and leading others in becoming StoryKeepers™ for NECC’s 2009 Exhibition of how technology has made a difference for our world-wide kids over the last thirty years. Join us in shaping the logistics and timelines; developing the story prompts to craft storytelling rather than digital stories; identifying resources including vendor support; gathering examples of 2-4 minute videos, enhanced podcasts and other digital storytelling modes to be posted at TeacherTube.com. And there is a wiki where you can share your thoughts -  http://digitalstorytelling.iste.wikispaces.net

Hasta el Alamo!

     It was just about two weeks ago that I struggled to condense a full day with Bernajean Porter down to a couple of blog size paragraphs. Our own Brad Fountain has gone me one better and posted a podcast of an interview he did with Bernajean after our day together. This is the next best thing to seeing her in person and in about an hour you’ll get a much better feel for BJP’s take on digital storytelling than I could ever put into words. However, I will attempt to give you a bit of what you will hear when you click the link at the end of this post or download it from Brad’s site.
     Bernajean touches on many of the topics that are close to her storytelling heart. Among those you will hear are a nice description of the differences between digital storytelling and digital stories, the virtues of brevity (“get to the point!”), building creative tension, sharing the lesson learned, photo essays and portfolio pieces (not usually true digital storytelling), and moving from data to understanding. And, as always, write, write, write! Right? DEN Podcast Show #3
Download 03_show_3_digital_storytelling_w_.mp3

     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