The Anatomy of Digi-Tales (Digital Storytelling)

What is Digital Storytelling?

Introduction to Digital Storytelling

Stories are one of the vital ingredients of human evolution, we wouldn't be who we are if we hadn't heard the stories that we have. Do you remember the first story you ever heard  in your life? It has something to say about who you are today. Narrative is the fundamental way of making sense of the world because we all are the protagonists of the stories that we live, called life.  Throughout human history and all cultures, Stories have made a huge impact on our lives.

Digital storytelling (or digital media production), is the word of the NOW a medium shift, but the stories remain, and are reimagined and re-told, with the evolving mediums. Simply put, digital storytelling is the practice of telling stories using digital tools.  Digital stories often present in compelling and emotionally engaging formats, and can be interactive. Digital storytelling is a process by which diverse people coming from different backgrounds share their life stories and creative imaginings with others.

Digital storytelling or Digi-Tale is a modern extension of the ancient art of storytelling.

An emergence of new media and digital techniques allow individuals to share their stories over the Internet on youtube, compact discs, podcasts, and other electronic distribution systems. So much so that today , being a Youtuber or instagrammer has turned into a profession and a lucrative one. This rapidly changing technology has given a different dimension and perspective to storytelling, empowering the storytellers of today and making the medium more democratic.

Elements of Effective Digital Storytelling

Purpose of the Story

What is the overall purpose of the story? This is one of the most important elements of storytelling.

The Narrator’s point of view

Every story has a curious and informative aspect from a Narrator’s point of view. There can be different modes of narration but the narrator only describes characters' behaviour and dialogue.

The Choice of Content

For a fact, the choice of content of a text both determines and reflects the overall perspective and understanding.

Use of a Meaningful Audio Soundtrack

This is very vital to select a relevant track for the scene or the character to hook the audience with the story.

Economy of the Story Detail

The story should be simple to understand as students have a tendency to focus on essential elements of the story and leave out the unnecessary details.

Tools for Digital Storytelling

The great digital storytelling apps and sites on this list run the gamut: from traditional storybook creation tools to more recent visual storytelling and presentation tools influenced by social media and blogging

TOOLS

• Adobe Slate: This tool has features that turn the customer’s reports, newsletters, and travelling reports into delightful and cheerful stories.

• SlideStory: This tool provides space for a picture as a slide with a voice recorder and an mp3 audio file as well.

• Smilebox: This tool helps to create collages, scrapbooks, slideshows, and audio-visual representations in an effective manner.

• Storybird: This tool helps create a visual story in seconds.  The tool has the features of turning the story visual in seconds and providing it in a readable form.

• Zooburst: This tool is online-based and can be used on a laptop and iPad as well.  The authors and storytellers have access to characters and props within a 3D world.

WEBSITES

• Bubblr is a tool to create comic strips using photos from flickr, just taking a sequence of pictures where you can add bubbles and create a story.

• Comic Master Comic Master allows you to create your own short graphic novel!

• Slidestory Slidestory allows you to combine picture slideshows with voice narration.

• ACMI Generator is a creative studio space where you can explore the moving image, be inspired, create your own moving image works, and share your creations with the Generator community.

Digital Storytelling in Education

Digital Storytelling in Academics is an introduction to the tools and methods of production and content creation . This also introduces them to multiple softwares and techniques.

 Digital Storytelling as an Effective Instructional Tool for Teachers

Digital storytelling can help teachers save time and effort. Some studies argue that teachers who use digital storytelling more effectively encourage their students to engage in discussion, participation and make content more comprehensible. Additionally, digital storytelling provides teachers with a powerful collaboration tool that can be used in their classrooms. This tool can be used to encourage teachers to prepare their own stories for their students and connect with peers in other schools to build their own collaborative learning spaces. Teachers can create digital storytelling from the content or have their students do it to demonstrate their understanding of the content.

Digital Storytelling as an Effective Tool for Students

Digital storytelling can provide many significant benefits to students who have the opportunity to learn how to create their own digital stories. Students may be given assignments in which they are asked to research a topic, look for pictures, record their voice and then choose a particular point of view, as described in the seven elements of digital storytelling. This process helps to enhance student's knowledge and academic skills. Involving students in this type of activity, based upon the use of multimedia, can enhance student’s motivation to improve their learning and performance. Because motivation is a critical ingredient for learning, teachers should use a variety of methods in their instruction to promote motivation.

Examples of Digital Storytelling

Netflix – Bandersnatch

The interactive TV mechanic brought rave reviews from critics, moving the TV genre closer to a game. Bandersnatch allows you to choose a variety of options throughout the interactive film, allowing you to reach one of many different endings.

Bandersnatch has done so well that follow up interactive films are being recorded to be released on Netflix over the next few months.

Bear 71

Bear 71 is a 20 minutes interactive documentary that isn't just about simple narrative. It’s a story about technology, and how it shapes our interaction with the online world.

Royal Navy – Get The Message

This is one of the oldest digital storytelling examples we can remember. It was created by Isobar, on behalf of the Royal Navy.It allowed you to create a message, and send it by text, email or social media message to one of your friends and family.

Future of Digital Storytelling

The future of Digital Storytelling is , when the content comes out of the screen, making the screen obsolete. This would be in the realm of holographic projections and would promise total digital immersive experience to everyone. Storytelling would depend on the viewer and their choices of what happens next, by having total control over the narrative and even the details of the content. Would you be able to decide what the characters are wearing, maybe.

 Digital storytelling is defined as a modern expression of ancient art of storytelling by using digital media to create media-rich stories to tell, share and preserve. It derives their power through weaving together images, music, narrative and voice in order to give deep dimension and vivid colour to characters, situations and insights. Digital storytelling in educational settings is a process of creating short stories which allows students and educators to boost up their skills such as information gathering and problem solving skills.To conclude, digital storytelling is able to reinforce positive attitudes and 21st century skills among pre-service teachers. It is one of learner-centred approaches which can help to improve students’ learning in multiple ways hence it is vital to integrate the use of this teaching and learning tool in the classroom. The findings of the study made clear that most of the pre-service teachers still lack knowledge and experiences in applying digital storytelling in their teaching and learning session which may lead them to have negative perceptions on digital storytelling. Therefore, it is highly recommended that the educational institutions can provide more opportunities regarding the teaching and learning technologies to the future teachers. This is very important for pre-service teachers to become skillful with the technologies before they embark on their journey as future teachers.

Digital storytelling empowers students to face an ever evolving future of storytelling, and embrace and adapt to the changing technology with ease.