Digital Storytelling

In class we started talking about digital storytelling. When I took C I 201 I created a digital story over the Great Depression: Bootlegging. It was a good topic but it wasn’t personal to me. In class we were shown examples of past students’ digital stories. They all had something more to them than mine did. They were all personal, giving the narration a little something extra and invoking the story with emotion. When I saw these a few things popped into my head. First, what to do my topic over? Next, what is something I have a lot of pictures of? And last, does it need to be an on-going event or can it be a one day ordeal? After thinking about these three questions I started brainstorming ways of incorporating this project into the classroom. This project may seem pretty advanced, but after watching an eight year old girl give a digital story over her experience with learning to read, I realized anyone can make a digital story, even younger children. The things you need to think about with having them do something like this is what topic they will do it over and how they will put it together. I think this project can be done over multiple topics in almost any subject. It can be personal, funny, imaginative, informative, emotional, and the list goes on. As far as putting it together, something like I-movie works great. It is easy to use and most people could learn how to use it after a mini-lesson over it. Lastly, I was thinking about how you would grade it. I think a rubric would work best. Rubrics let students know exactly what is needed from them. Now all I have to do is think of a topic and create my digital story.