1. 7 Steps to Creating a Digital Story
Tom Banaszewski
techthisout.wikispaces.com/Digital+Storytelling
techszewski.blogs.com
teachstory.org

2. .org

3. 7 Steps of a Digital Story
1. Writing the Script
2. Planning the Project
3. Creating Folders
4. Recording Voice Over
5. Gather, Create, and Edit Media
6. Rough Cut First then Final Cut
7. Export and Share Your Digital Story

4. 5 Steps - 5 Stages of DS Project
1. Write a two to three minute first person story
2. Collect images to accompany the story
3. Import images into the computer
4. Record the voice over.
5. Align images with script.

5. Digital Literacy
“What we ought to be developing in our schools is not simply a narrow array of literacy skills limited to a restrictive range of meaning systems, but a spectrum of literacies...”
- Elliot W. Eisner writes The Kind of Schools We Need

6. Teach Story… or else
Students gather any and all images related to their topic.
Students cannot explain the difference between a digital story, slideshow and multimedia report.
Assessment becomes subjective when the story, visual and media skills have not been adequately taught.

7. Is it a Digital Story? A little history lesson Next Exit
You be the judge
7 Elements (see hand-out)
Show Matt McArthur
Show Billy Collins animation
Show Chelsea My Backyard
Show Dr. King
Show Zimbabwe story
Show My Name Is Not Mr. B

8. 7 Elements (CDS model) 1. Point of view 2. Dramatic question
3. Emotional content
4. Individual voice
5. Soundtrack
6. Economy
7. Pacing

9. Defining Digital Storytelling
the practice of combining personal narrative with multimedia to produce a short autobiographical movie
Show Renaissance video.
Poll the audience on their definition of “story”
Use scraps of paper or notecards

10. Defining Story
“a narrative account constructed around four central themes: character, conflict, struggle, goal”
- Kendal Haven Write Right

11. Step 1: What’s Your Story?
“Everybody is talented, original and has something important to say,” – Barbara Ueland If You Want to Write
This is what sparked the digital storytelling movement.
Brief history of digital storytelling
Digital storytelling is all about empowering voices

12. Challenges of Writing the Script
Loss of storytelling culture
Weak story literacy skills
Avoiding the narrated slideshow pitfall
Traditional composition approaches
Balancing telling vs. showing

13. “Dancing together text, images and audio on the screen,” – Bernajean Porter DigiTales

14. Many Paths Lead to a Good Story
Answer an open ended question
Concise moment of change
Note card approach
Writing into a photo
Story Spine
Story Sparks (Jay O’Callahan)

15. Story Core What is the central struggle? The dramatic question?
Story Circle
Synthesizing experience and emotions

16. Get the Picture of Your Story First
Virtual Portrait of a Story (VPS)
Show VPS version of Don’t Call Me Mr. B
Bring up VPS hand-out

17. VPS for Don’t Call Me Mr. B
Parents died early. No chance to ask questions.
People shorten my last name to “Mr. B”
Make sure people know my full last name. Don’t answer to Mr. B
Nobody in family talked about our background.
Find peace in maintaining link to my past thru my last name.
Don’t know anything about my last name. What are you?
Feel good about getting message across to my students.

18. Storyboarding

19. Written Script Not an essay No paragraphs 1-3 sentence chunks
Try to keep to one page

20. Step 2: Planning the Project
Practice what you preach
Fail to plan, plan to fail
Setting realistic expectations
iMovie, Adobe, Microsoft?
Test your software, equipment, working environment

21. Step 3: Organizing Your Folders
Original Images
Resized Images VO
Music
Exports
Go thru process of creating folders on the desk-top for

22. Step 4: Recording the Voice Over
Recording within iMovie
Microphones, headphones
Using Audacity
MP3 recorder
Show how to record VO inside iMovie and with Audacity
Compare quality with and w/o mic and between iMovie and Audacity
Discuss microphones and digital MP3 recorders

23. Step 5: Gather, Create, Edit Media
Start with images, hold off on video til later
BIG, engaging images
Google, Picassa, Flickr
Visual literacy
Show where to find images: Google, Picassa, Creative Commons, Library of Congress, museums
Show how to resize images
Scanning settings

24. Editing Images Magic numbers 640 x 480 Scanning Hand drawn images
Resize images

25. Step 6: Rough Cut then Final Edits
Import your images
Drag and Drop
Add VO
Sync images with VO
Adjust timing of images
Add transitions, effects
Refer to iMovie tutorial
Import VO
Sync images
Adjust timing of images
Add transitions
Adjust audio levels, create fades
Add Ken Burns effect

26. Step 7: Sharing Your Digital Story
Export = compressing =
making file size smaller
CD quality
Full DV
Web version
Upload to YouTube
Exporting in three different versions: CD, web, Full dv

27. Will My Name Be Shouted Out
“…media production gives voice to students who are otherwise silenced in their schools and communities. It allows students to represent their experiences and their communities as cultural insiders, instead of the incessant misrepresentation of them outside their communities.”
- Kathleen Tyner Literacy in the Digital Age
My dream school – represent every voice of every student, staff and faculty. What’s the potential of a community like that?