Digital Stories: More than just a YouTube Video

For this fifth blog, we were asked to reflect upon what we learned when exploring the Digital Storytelling website created by the University of Houston.  Storytelling has been around for thousands of years, traditionally in an oral form.  Our region of Appalachia has a long tradition of storytelling.  In fact, the International Storytelling Center is just right up the road from me in Jonesborough, TN. Every year, they have a huge festival that keeps the traditions of this historical, oral narration alive. Attending one year is on my bucket list.

 

But I digress...The notion of digital storytelling is definitely a brand new baby in the scheme of the long oral history that I just elaborated upon.  I learned from the website that the advent of the digital format dates to the 1990s.  However, accessibility to the masses was definitely limited.  In the past decade (and this is my own hypothesis), digital storytelling has boomed.  Much of the population now has easy access to computers, the internet, and video cameras (often right on their phones).  Phrases such as "Just check it out on YouTube" have entered our everyday conversations.  I cannot begin to mention how many people I know, myself included, will go to YouTube to find a video on how to do something, like replacing the p-trap under your sink.  And what are these videos?  They are a form of digital storytelling!

The possibilities for incorporating digital storytelling into the curriculum is limitless.  It can be such a fun and quick way to disseminate information to your class in a multimedia format.  I see great potential in my own classroom to have a selection of digital stories that would be quick tutorials on mixing paint colors, cleaning up supplies, and showing approaches to art making, just to name a few.  I know for this project on Digital Storytelling that I plan on starting to create some of these tutorials for my own classroom and create digital demonstrations for the things that I find myself repeating the most.  While by no means do I plan on allowing a digital story to take the place of hands-on classroom demonstrations, I see them as a great way to document a demonstration that could then easily be reviewed by students as needed.  I am very excited about the possibilities!    

Alright, lets go make a video...ACTION!!!