Written by: Instructional Technology
7/19/2010 12:59 PM 

By: Dana Levesque

“Literacy is the ability to write in the medium in which one reads.”   Dr. Jason Ohler - Literacy in the 21st Century.

What is Digital Storytelling?   Digital Storytelling usually contains some mixture of digital images, text, recorded sound/music, narration, and/or video clips.  Many students used PhotoStory, Moviemaker a myriad of online comic strip tools and others to make their digital stories.  The tools today are more student friendly, intuitive, and expect more creativity from the user. 

The following three writing tools are examples of how far digital storytelling has come.

Mood Creator: Provides a digital space for students to explore how the mixing of images, text and sounds create different moods. 
Classroom Application:
- Have your students use a single image to create multiple moods by changing the text and sound they use.  Challenge your students to try this again with using the same sequence of several images.  This can be done whole class, small group or individually.

Story Creator 2 : Provides a digital space for students to create a story with backgrounds, images/characters, text, and a variety of recording options ( recording themselves telling the story, adding sound effects to objects/characters, recording voices for characters, uploading an mp3 file ) as well as speech bubbles.  Story Creator differentiates for learners.  Students can create a short story or use the chapter feature and create an extensive novel.

Museum Box : Provides the tools for students to build an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. Students can include text files, their voice, music, weblinks, documents, images, and movies. Each of the eight boxes has six sides to put information on. Students can also view museum boxes submitted by others and comment on their contents.
Classroom Application:
- Make the traditional biography written report a multimedia showcase.  Students still write about their “hero” or “famous person” but in addition have visual/written/audio artifacts from that individual.

- Change your history fair project from the traditional paper tri-board to online interactive learning boxes.
Click on the Museum box icon below to see how a virtual box works.

There are many digital storytelling tools.  If you have any you want to share, please reply to this post.

By: Dana Levesque – District Technology Integration Specialist

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