Telling our story is an essential part of our humanness. It allows us to feel part of the community that knows our story, and it fosters empathy for those that surround us. Story is a powerful force in shaping mental models, motivating and persuading others, and teaching the lessons of life. Telling story extends back to a time when oral history dominated the tools of communication. And now the flood of technology tools that allow for instant communication has spun us back into a golden age where story again dominates the media landscape.
Mission
We surface authentic voices around the world through group process and participatory media creation. Our programs support people in sharing and bearing witness to stories that lead to learning, action, and positive change.
What We Do
For nearly twenty years, the Center has been supporting people in sharing meaningful stories from their lives. Our unique workshops assist participants in producing short, first-person narratives that can be presented in a variety of traditional and social media formats. We provide non-threatening production environments in which the process of creation is valued as much as the stories created.
Through partnerships with a range of organizations, institutions, and funders, we offer story making and story distribution services that prioritize the power of individual voices. Whether you're interested in storytelling for professional development, as a reflective practice, as a pedagogical strategy, or as a vehicle for education, community mobilization, or advocacy, we are recognized globally as experts in all things digital storytelling.
Digital storytelling refers to a short form of digital media production that allows everyday people to share aspects of their life story. "Media" may include the digital equivalent of film techniques (full-motion video with sound), animation, stills, audio only, or any of the other forms of non-physical media (material that exists only as electronic files as opposed to actual paintings or photographs on paper, sounds stored on tape or disc, movies stored on film) which individuals can use to tell a story or present an idea.
"Digital Storytelling is the modern expression of the ancient art of storytelling. Throughout history, storytelling has been used to share knowledge, wisdom, and values. Stories have taken many different forms. Stories have been adapted to each successive medium that has emerged, from the circle of the campfire to the silver screen, and now the computer screen."
Like paintings, personal narrative stories that mix images, graphics, sound, and music with the author's own
storytelling voice will exist over time and be enjoyed long past their creation. The ideas and content for this Digital
storytelling guide have been compiled and written by Bernajean Porter, whose book, DigiTales: The Art of Telling
Digital Stories, includes detailed step-by-step processes for bringing this emerging oral storytelling style into today's
classrooms.
Learn how software like Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements can become effective digital
storytelling tools in your classroom. Unleash your students' imagination as they create unique, personal 3-to 5-
minute movies.
Stories bring us together, encourage us to understand and empathize, and help us to communicate. Long before paper and books were common and affordable, information passed from generation to generation through this oral tradition of storytelling. Consider Digital Storytelling as the 21st Century version of the age-old art of storytelling with a twist: digital tools now make it possible for anyone to create a story and share it with the world.
When students create a movie or interactive slide show to tell their story, learning becomes personal. Students can improve their writing, show creativity, and have a voice.
A digital story combines text and images with narration in the student's own voice to form a short digital movie.
Digital Storyteller is a web-based tool that offers teachers and students frictionless access to digital images and materials that enable them to construct compelling personal narratives. Digital Storyteller was developed as an initiative of Primary Access.
Integrating digital storytelling with instruction becomes a creative opportunity for both novice and technologically experienced educators when using Jason Ohler's Digital Storytelling in the Classroom. Ohler links digital storytelling to improving traditional, digital, and media literacy, and guides teachers on how to empower students to tell stories in their own native language: new media and multimedia.
Aligned with NCTE standards and covering important copyright and fair use information, this text provides information on integrating storytelling into curriculum design and using the principles of storytelling as a measurement of learning and literacies. Implementation tips and visual aids abound, giving teachers an exciting new resource.
Storytelling is an age-old art form. With Web 2.0 and the tools already available on most computers, students can use text, music, sound effects, videos, and more to create a multimedia presentation that links them to the world beyond the classroom. Storytelling has the potential to unleash creativity, engage, and motivate. Applicable across the curriculum, digital storytelling teaches students to work collaboratively and use new technologies, skills they will be required to have in the workforce of the future.
This book offers an overview of digital storytelling as well as its variations, including e-portfolios, digital photo essays, and scrapblogs. The many recommendations, overviews, and explanations of digital storytelling tools, along with lists of additional digital storytelling resources, will help educators to apply this exciting technology in their classrooms. Educators will also discover the ways digital storytelling can be used for their own professional development. Digital Storytelling Guide for Educators provides detailed directions to preparation, production, and presentation, and rounds out with a discussion on creating rubrics and evaluating student work. Readers will come away with an understanding of digital stories and the tools needed to create them.