Medical Education UnitSchool of Medicine

Digital Storytelling – everything you ever wanted to know!

John Sandars

Senior Lecturer / Academic lead for e-learning

j.e.sandars@leeds.ac.uk

Christopher Murray

ELP Project Officer

c.murray@leeds.ac.uk

What is digital storytelling?

A digital story is a story created by the use of multimedia (Video, photographs and sound)

Why digital?

Digital natives

Learning styles - VAK

Learn, work, play and shop differently

Use of new technologies - Web 2.0 / mobile phones

A new type of learner !

Why storytelling?

Stories convey meanings, thoughts, emotions and ideas

Why digital storytelling?

“digital storytelling is a highly motivating strategy that can make reflection concrete and visible”

Barrett HC Researching and Evaluating Digital Storytelling as a Deep Learning Tool

helenbarrett.com/portfolios/SITEStorytelling2006.pdf

The opportunity to be creative can liberate many learners and enable tacit aspects of self identity to be revealed

David Gauntlett Creative Explorations 2007

The power of the visual

Center for Digital StorytellingCenter for Digital Storytelling

Berkeley, California

1993 Joe Lambert + Dana Atchley

Visions:

They believe in the transformative power of narrative.

They want to democratise new media.

The classic form

Digital Stories are 3 – 5 minute movies consisting of the author’s images and video coordinated with a voiceover to tell a story.

The story is enhanced using a soundtrack.

‘Digital Storytelling’ is a method and a movement to give people a voice by the use of computer tools

(Lambert 2002)

Digital Storytelling is a genre of self-representational mini-films, told in first person.

The multimodality of digital media offers additional power.

1. Everyone has a powerful story to tell.

2. Stories unveil themselves in the encounter with an audience.

The Story Circle

3. We all see, hear, and perceive the world in different ways, making our stories different.

4. Creative activity is human activity. Telling stories is part of this creativity.

5. The computer, with all its limitations, is a powerful instrument for creativity.

The seven elements of storytelling

1: Point (of View)

2: Dramatic Question

3: Emotional Content

4: The Gift of Your Voice

5: The Power of the Soundtrack

6: Economy

7: Pacing

DS are not like any other previous form of broadcast material

“… for the first time contributors are not just originating their own material, for the first time they are editing it too”.

Daniels Meadows

BBC Wales

What is the effect of digital storytelling?

The Digital Faith StoriesThe Digital Faith Stories follow the format outlined at the Centre for Digital Storytelling (CDS) in California

These stories are mediated self-representations.

They are topical autobiographies, or personal narratives.

The American folklorist Sandra Stahl defines a personal narrative as ‘a single-episode personal story’ (Stahl 1989:13).

Constructing Digital Stories on Faith and Life –

An experiment in religious education

Birgit Hertzberg Kaare & Knut Lundbyi

Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo

Quotes from the young storytellers

“ It was not difficult, but exiting to learn something new. I feel cool making my own film”.

“I think that what is really fine with a digital story, is that instead of having a lot of memories in the head all the time, you can put them on a ‘tape’ and show them to others. It is so much in your head all the time that is never transmitted to others”.

“‘Pictures say more than a thousand words’. That is what I have heard. […] When I look at the pictures, I get ideas or remember things“.

Plenty of unanswered questions?

John Sandars j.e.sandars@leeds.ac.uk