Digital stories are brief videos, usually around two minutes long, that consist of a narration, a series of still images, and a backing soundtrack. Traditionally, they are personal narratives, though I would argue that their utility in the classroom extends beyond the personal narrative to stories that tell an under-appreciated episode from history, or to remixes of classical literature. The key element is that students follow the traditional tenets of good storytelling in their stories. The stories should have a beginning, middle, and end. And, very importantly, the storyteller’s personality should be present in the story, whether the content is a personal narrative or not. Your personality comes through in your voice, your words, and in the images you choose to tell the story. The tone should not be academically neutral.

One of the reasons why video, and digital stories, are a powerful medium is that video allows the storyteller multiple modes of communication. Traditional writing has one mode of communication–the text. Contrast that with a person-to-person interaction where there are innumerable channels of communication, everything from the words, to the tone of voice, to body language, to inflection, to physical gestures. Video, like person-to-person interactions, is a multimodal communication medium, and digital stories are simple enough to create that students can explore telling these kind of rich stories with minimal technological overhead.

In this module, you are going to make a two-minute digital story.

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