Creating a digital story

Well, this was a first. I had just taken a workshop on Photostory 3, so I had a little experience with adding pictures, titles, and sound. But using a storyboard was a challenge for me. I quit enjoyed the experience. I chose to change the color of the font of the first word of the narration to indicate that a slide change in the storyboarding. I didn't have problems with the sound of my voice. But when I was tired, I could definitely tell a difference in the volume.

I agree with Shank (n.d.) when she said “the whole should be greater than the sum of the parts” (p. 2). In digital storytelling, the finished product is definitely more than the pictures, title, text and sound would be individually.Collaborating with others was very helpful as they could see where changes should be made to make more of an impact or less of one, also with choosing sounds and words to help convey the meaning the producer was trying to make.

Overall the experience was not as stressful as I thought it would be. With the use of a step by step guide to digital storytelling by Lambert, the process itself was fairly easy to follow. In deciding what type of story to produce, Lambert (2007) gives suggestions on the type of personal story to begin with and questions to help narrow down the topic and give a personal aspect to the process. The two questions from the author that impacted the video the most were “What lesson did they give you that you feel is important?” and “If you had something to say to them, that they may have never heard you say, what would it be?” (p. 6).

All of the programs used were free downloads and easy to follow. This was also my first time downloading to YouTube. I did get lots of help with that. Thanks everyone. I do recommend creating a storyboard for storytelling and want to use this in my classroom at school as one of the presentation options. I think I would include a timeline for each part so students won't get stalled in any one of the parts to complete the project.

REFERENCES

Shank, P. (n.d.). The value of multimedia in learning. Think Tank. Retrieved June 2, 2009, from http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/thinktank/valuemedia/

Lambert, J. (2007, February). Digital storytelling cookbook, 1-30. Story Center. Retrieved June 2, 2009, from http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf