Digital Storytelling

Pamela Wilson
Blog 6
LS589-W1

I was really excited when I looked at The Educational Used of Digital Storytelling at http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu, the website to which Dr. Magolis referred us this week. Because I am an English teacher, I love good stories. I love writing stories and I love listening to stories. Digital Storytelling brings the best of everything to storytelling because you can include graphics and sound. I wanted to spend more time learning about digital storytelling, so I decided to write my blog on that topic for this week. I am getting my information from the aforementioned site which covers the topic in an excellent manner.

According to The Educational Used of Digital Storytelling, “Digital Storytelling is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories (University of Houston, pg. 1, 2008). These stories can contain text, audio narration, computer-based images, video clips, and/or music. The stories can be about historical events, personal narration, fictional characters, whatever the writer can imagine and has an interest in. Daniel Meadows, a British digital storyteller and teacher defines digital stories as “short, personal multimedia tales told from the heart.” He describes them as “multimedia sonnets from the people “ in which “photographs discover the talkies, and the stories told assemble in the ether as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, a gaggle of invisible histories which, when viewed together, tell the bigger story of our time, the story that defines who we are (University of Houston, pg. 1, 2008). He said that so poetically that I had to quote him. And indeed the samples that he shows on the website are poetically inspired and beautiful. I think that even the most unmotivated students would be motivated by digital storytelling.

To create digital stories, you need photo, video, audio, and image editing software. You also need a media player to play it on. The web site suggests numerous software applications which work well for digital storytelling. This website contains a short tutorial on the seven elements of digital storytelling from The Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, California. Digital storytelling can be used by educators in any grade level to introduce new material, teach students to research, and teach students to use digital and editing tools (University of Houston, pg. n.p., 2008).

An issue of real concern in using digital storytelling in the classroom is the copyright law. The creator of any fixed work owns the right to use the work. Permission must be obtained from the copyright holder if you want to use their work in your work. There are some exceptions to this law and these are considered in the Educational Fair Use laws. There is a very significant amount of information concerning copyright on the digital storytelling web site. It is contained on the web page http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/copyright.html. Copyrighted material may be used for projects if it is only viewed by people in the school in which it was created. Materials may also be used if access to your site is limited. You can not publish material containing copyrighted material on the World Wide Web as a public document because there is no guarantee that it will be used only for educational purposes. There is a good faith fair use defense that can be used under certain circumstances and this is also covered on the web site. There are 26 pages of information and web links dealing with copyright and it would serve the teacher well to study it closely before starting digital storytelling with their students. I have printed these pages off and intend to read them as I have spare moments. I can see digital storytelling as being a very popular and engaging teaching tool.

Reference

The University of Houston. (2008). The Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling. Retrieved October 11, 2009, from http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu