Digital Storytelling

Last week I had the honor to meet Cathy Healy who visited Chile sponsored by the USA Embassy in Santiago. She is a reporter and novelist, currently working for the National Geographic. Cathy visited the BNC where I work to offer a workshop about Digital Storytelling.

But what is Digital Storytelling? It is a new way of narrative. Telling stories using images, pictures, sounds, music combined in a way to show the mood and feelings of the narrator.

I have worked using technology in the classroom; I have seen how technology is used by different teachers in several places. But this is something really powerful. 

Let’s see an example.

What is it?

Digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digi­tal content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component. Sophisticated digital stories can be interactive movies that include highly produced audio and visual effects, but a set of slides with corresponding nar­ration or music builds up a basic digital story. Digital stories can be instructional, persuasive, historical, or reflective. The resources available to incorporate into a digital story are virtually limitless, giving the storyteller enormous creative latitude. Some learning theorists believe that as a pedagogical technique, storytelling can be effectively applied to nearly any subject. Constructing a narra­tive and communicating it effectively require the storyteller to think carefully about the topic and consider the audience perspective.

Digital storytelling is evolving from the simple narrated video to forms with interactivity and higher production values. These include websites and online videos created to promote causes, entertain, educate, and inform audiences. There are some examples of its use for immigrants’ integration in the Center for Digital Storytelling website. 

How may I use it in education?

Joe Lambert, considered the founder of Digital Storytelling, opened the Center for Digital Storytelling. They developed a unique computer training and arts program that has become a workshop spread all over the world.

The Center for Digital Storytelling model has also been adopted in education, especially in the US, where some practitioners use it as a method of building engagement and multimedia literacy.

Cathy has several examples of videos in her Blog made by students from 6th grade to university students.

Thanks to Cathy we have created a network of teachers interested in developing Digital Storytelling in their classrooms, to whom we will create workshops to learn more about multimedia and to support the implementation of this engaging method.

Here you have a video of an interview to Cathy before she left.

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