Arnie Abrams is opening the session by stating that digital storytelling should be more about the writing – and the writing process – than about the technology.
Benefits of digital storytelling:
- can be made interactive
- provides real audience
- works for the “YouTube generation”
- helps develop visual literacy
- helps to understand mass media
- requires presentation skills
- develops writing skills
We can now do digital storytelling 2.0 – interactive (VoiceThread – my idea, not his;-)
Ten step development process:
- start with a good story
- write an outline/script
- storyboard
- brainstorm visual ideas, music
- findavisual, shoot
- edit visulas
- add title , graphics
- record narration
- match visual to audio. add music
- produce, revise, present, distribute
Meg Ormiston quote “Without a structure students will focus on adding images, music, and other elements instead of focusing on the content and organization”
Storyboarding – recommends using index cards so kids can move slides around.
Ways to build a digital story:
- Stills in a folder
- PowerPoint (export PNGs)
- Slide show programs – Photoshop Elements
- Video editing programs
- Flash
- DVD authoring
Software options:
- iPhoto – Mac only and lacks features, such as titles
- Photoshop Elements – has slideshow option – with 2 audio tracks! And nice pan and zoom effect; add clip art on top of images via drag and drop; good edit control – but only makes WMV format – appropriate for 5th grade on up
- PhotoStory 3 – Windows only. You can work only with stills – and doesn’t run with Vista. You can bring in your own music – or create your own copyright-free music.
Video Editors:
- Corel VideoStudio – appropriate for 6th grade up – Windows only. Allows importing music and video from DVDs. Bottom third option for text. Has 5.1 surround sound – nice for exporting to DVDs. Also allows exporting into all the basic formats (mov, avi, etc.)
- iMovie – previous versions great, but iLife 08 pretty much sucks – but you can download previous version.
- Clicker – works on Mac and Windows – Arnie has developed storytelling templates to get kids started. Appropriate for primary kids. Includes text reader, but they can also use microphone option.
Tip for copyright issues: Include a disclaimer on your site with offer to remove images, etc., by request. Here’s a sample one from Arnie:
“Many of the digital stories on our site include images and audio found on the Internet using commonly available search engines. The stories have been created for non-profit, educational use by students and teachers and we hope are within the fair use protection of existing copyright laws. If any copyright owner objects to the use of any work appearing on this site, please contact us and we will remove the work and review the propriety of including it.”