Submitted by Fiona Beal
The term ‘Digital Storytelling’ has different meanings in different contexts I have discovered. Sometimes writing a story using a lovely online story editor such as Storybird is referred to as digital storytelling – and it probably is. Sometimes writing a story offline using PowerPoint or Keynote, and illustrating it, is referred to as digital storytelling – and it probably is. So the most simple definition of digital storytelling, that embraces both the above views, could be ‘Digital storytelling combines the original tradition of storytelling with technology’.

But in this post I am going to elaborate on the most common view of Digital Storytelling. Let’s start off with a video called ‘What is Digital Storytelling?’. (This will give you an idea of what is probably the most common view of digital storytelling.) 

A widely recognised definition of Digital Storytelling

I like this definition of digital storytelling “the art of combining storytelling with a combination of digital graphics, text, recorded audio narration, video and music, to communicate information about a specific theme or topic”.  The targeted audience for the digital storytelling product plays an important vital role in determining how the story is constructed and which digital elements are included. 

An infographic that says it all
This infographic is made with a free webtool called Thinglink. 

This Thinglink example above was created by Tonia at this URL:  

http://www.thinglink.com/scene/382359211410980864. Notice how Thinglink brings the image to life. 

Examples of digital storytelling

1. Be more dog

This is one of my favourite digital stories. It contains a good message

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMzgl0nFj3s

2. Handa’s hen

This is lovely children’s story complete with video, music and narration – but no words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9FZqX1CBqE

3. Adventures of a supercow

A story from the African Storybook website called ‘The adventures of a supercow’. I used a free tool, Screencastomatic.com, to capture a video of this story.

http://africanstorybook.org/book/read/1239#

Some questions…

Did you know that digital storytelling is a term NOT just for creative stories in language lessons as such? Some learning theorists believe that as a pedagogical technique, storytelling/digital storytelling can be effectively applied to nearly any subject. What are your thoughts about this I wonder?

Further Resources

• A Handy Interactive on the Digital Storytelling Process
• Digital Storytelling Resources
• Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling
• Digital Storytelling links