Techniques: Digital Storytelling
Digital storytelling involves the creation of a narrative (i.e. story) through the combination of different media. The resulting product can range from a PowerPoint presentation that uses text and still images to a movie with voice-over. It is considered to have particular appeal to the "social network" generation of students, who may already be used to creating and sharing their own electronic content.
One purpose of digital storytelling is for students to capture their subjective experiences over a period and subsequently reflect on them, so that their reflective learning is situated in a biographical account. For example, medical students at the University of Leeds have created digital stories as a way to reflect on their visits to patients in their homes, as part of a module in Personal and Professional Development. These stories include images that are symbols representing the students' responses to their visits, not pictures of the patients themselves. The students assemble their stories into a short PowerPoint presentation which they make to their tutors as part of their formal assessment.
You can find an introductory guide to digital storytelling in the Educause Learning Initiative’s (ELI’s) 7 Things You Should Know About... series (PDF).
