Digital+Storytelling

What is Digital Storytelling?

Digital Storytelling is a way to combine pictures, photos, and videos with music and voice to create a digital movie. Digital storytelling can be "storytelling" (fictional) or can tell a story of a non-fiction subject, such as the life of a historical figure or the timeline leading to a war.

In class we talked about using the program PhotoStory to create digital stories. PhotoStory works solely with images, text, and voice. I have also provided a page of information on MovieMaker which is similar to PhotoStory, but allows for adding actual video.

The purpose of this page is to provide information about Digital Storytelling, what it is, examples of Digital Storytelling, other mediums for digital storytelling, and a brief list of lesson ideas for how to use Digital Storytelling. Please use the space at the bottom to add your ideas or upload samples or lessons of what you do in class this year! 

Information About Digital Storytelling and More...


 * [|University of Houston, College of Education Digital Storytelling Website](my personal favorite, has tons of information about digital storytelling, as well as ideas, and samples, GREAT GREAT GREAT)
 * [|Tech Head Stories]
 * [|Using MovieMaker website]

Digital Storytelling Mediums

  Websites With Samples of Digital Storytelling or Lesson Plans
 * PhotoStory- Use pictures, drawings, PowerPoint slides, text, audio, and voice recordings to create Windows Media Video files. Free download from Microsoft [|(click here to download)]. For school computers have your Tech put it on your computer. Click the PhotoStory link for the page on using PhotoStory.
 * [|Public Domain Images] Several thousand top quality public domain images nicely organized in folders, free for any personal and/or commercial use, credit or back link is not required. 
 * Movie Maker - Use PhotoStory elements and video to create digital movies. This should be on your computers already, you can find it by going to the Start Menu.
 * [|Mixbook] - Create free, online scrapbooks
 * CogDobRoo's 50 Digital Story Telling Tools - This is not a took, rather a link to a website with 50 different ways to create digital stories!
 * [|Comic Life] - Awesome tool (for PC and Mac!) which is free for 30 days, that allows users to drag and drop photos, scanned drawings, or clipart images that are saved to the desktop into several comic templates. Users can then add text to thought bubbles, put on WordArt, and ready, set, print! Have your Tech download this for you today, remarkable simple


 * [|Face to Face] (Advanced Digital Storytelling example not made with PhotoStory) (Advanced Digital Storytelling example not made with PhotoStory)
 * [|Springfield Public Schools] (Sample videos and lesson plans, most made with Movie Maker - Similar to PhotoStory, but with a video component)
 * [|Monarch Butterfly] (MovieMaker type movie)
 * [|Immigrant's Journey](Excellent PhotoStory sample from Middle School level, with lesson plan)
 * [|Time Period](American History video)
 * [|Apple Learning Interchange] (Apples searchable website where teachers share lesson plans and their final projects)
 * [|Elementary Examples]
 * [|Another Elementary Example] (Uses voice thread - a free online service, and scanned images)
 * [|Minnesota Historical Society] (Cool historical storytelling using something similar to Comic Life)
 * [|Niles Township HS] (Great examples using HS stories, also has links to great informational sites)
 * [|The Media Spot](Another GREAT GREAT site!)

Ideas Also see the "Ideas" section on the "Digital Cameras" page for a more detailed list of ideas


 * ABC Book
 * Illustrated "How-To"
 * Life Cyle
 * Weather Cycle
 * Illustrated Timeline
 * Explanation of a Math Concept
 * [|"This I Believe" (From NPR, click for Read, Write, Think Lesson Plan)]
 * Interviewing (Using pictures with an audio voiceover)
 * [|"We Didn't Start the Fire"] (Click for Read, Write, Think Lesson Plan using MUSIC lyrics as a base for a PhotoStory movie)
 * Students scrapbook their year or a unit of learning
 * Have kids "Introduce" themselves at the beginning of the year
 * In Math, have kids make "Math Rule" movies
 * You can make the rules in PowerPoint and save them as JPEG's (which can them be inserted into PhotoStory)
 * Select a preset number of pictures. Have kids select a certain number of them and make a story out of them. Look at the variety of stories you can get from this starter.

Websites with Ideas on How to Use Digital Storytelling
 * [|Tech Teachers Ideas for Digital Storytelling] (broken down by subject area, great site!)
 * A Wikispace with Digital Storytelling Ideas
 * [|Bob's Place of 1001 Digital Camera and Storytelling Uses and Ideas] (list of links to other pages, much closer to 1001 than the other page!)

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;">Creating Rubrics to Grade Digital Storytelling Projects Although I have little experience creating rubrics for Digital Stories, check out the following websites which do have them! If you have one, please, please share it!
 * [|Digital Education's Teacher Assessment Section]
 * [|Kathy Schrock's Guide for Educators] (scroll down to multimedia rubrics - also a lot of great other rubrics!!!)
 * [|iRubric] (build your own, or, visit the rubric gallery)
 * [|PA High School Computer Fair Digital Movie Rubric]
 * [[file:Digital Movie Rubric.pdf]]
 * [[file:Digital Movie Rubric 2.pdf]]
 * [[file:Digital Movie Rubric (Environmental).doc]]
 * [[file:Digital Movie Rubric 3.doc]] (Similar/copied from a website, but is in Word form)