Digital Storytelling 2.0:  What's Next?

CUE | Palm Springs

David Jakes | djakes@csd99.org

Resources

Storytelling resources

Flickr resources

Photostory resources | tutorial and screencasts

In 2008 and beyond, being a learner means being connected, and that means understanding how to develop connections through online networks.  These connections, and the networks they reside within, form the basis of a personalized learning network that literally can make learning a 24/7 endeavor that involves co-learners and co-teachers from around the globe.  Central to this ability to learn online, to participate online, is the ability to craft messages that have the potential to impact others.  Schools need to prepare students for a lifetime of storytelling through a variety of media, so that students can have a voice, and a voice that is heard.

How the world mediascape is changing:

1.  It's now participatory:  See John Edward's YouTube site where he asks Americans to post a movie to YouTube about America, and the direction the country needs to move toward.

2.  It's now the standard.  Who wants to work for an organization that advertizes this way?  See the Roanoke Times Ad

3.  It's now absolutely pervasive.  From YouTube to TeacherTube to SchoolTube to whatever other network emerges, online video is everywhere and there is no end in site.  It's even become part of obituaries, see Art Buchwald Video Obituary from the NY Times.

4.  It's now about You as the media creator.  Everything you need to produce digital stories is now online, from the software to the images, and with the development of cell phones, everyone can have a storytelling tool in their hand.  The distribution of $100 laptops makes everyone who recieves one a potential storyteller (see pictures of Nigerian rollout of OLPC computers).  What stories will be told as a result of this project?

What does this mean for digital storytelling?  Is there a different kind of digital storytelling on the horizon, a digitial storytelling 2.0 if you will?  The answer is yes and no.

What would digital storytelling 2.0 look like?  In my opinion, it features five areas:

New Media:  how can students take advantage of what others have created, and how can they contribute their own media to become collaborators?

Cell Flix Festival

Nine Inch Nails

Flickr Storm | Introductory Video | Video 2 | Video 3 | Flickr Storm print tutorial

FlickrCC | download, resize, crop, add text, along with attribution information

Yotophoto

ccMixter

ccMixter example

JamStudio

New Tools:  how can the new online tools be used to literally create an online design studio, capable of distributing content in multiple formats for multiple types of devices? 

In my opinion, these tools are in their early stages of usefulness and appropriateness.  It will be interesting to see what these tools become as they ultimately become more sophisticated. Will tools emerge that enable serious digital story creation, within the context of the fundamental processes and expectations for learning that we have for digital storytelling?

50 Ways to Tell a Story | Alan Levine

JumpCut | MyCadillacStory

Voicethread

Voicethread  Example

Eyespot

Flypaper

Mogopop

StoryMapping.org

Dandelife

New Composition Strategies:  Can we focus on fundamental design strategies that improve the message, empower the message, and create impact?

How can panning and zooming, transitions, text, and the performance as story create compelling messages?  Read more about it here.  See Jon Orech's movies on these topics here.

New Networks:  how can networks be leveraged for distribution of student voice?

Fox Hilites Chicago

AFI Screennation

Stories for Change | from the Center for Digital Storytelling

Ed.Voicethread | Voicethread Portal for Education

YouTube

TeacherTube

SchoolTube

New Messages:  how will you help students find the personal story in the content you teach?  How will you use this process to have students create truly meaningful messages, that enable students to tell a global audience, "Here is what I think?" 

How will you help students write themselves into existence?

How will you help student perform their writing?

Pangea Day

An example of a digital story done right (non-literal use of visual images, utilizes Creative Commons Attribution imagery from Flickr accessed via Flickr Storm, length is appropriate, original music from a classmate, is personal, and based in her Hispanic heritage, and comments on an worthy topic, and is distributed world-wide on YouTube with moderated commenting).

At the same time, it's important to not get caught up in what Joe Lambert of the Center for Digital Storytelling calls Digital Spectacle (see Gary Stager Blog post on Animoto).  True digital storytelling is grounded in the development of personal stories, and focuses on such fundamental literacies as:

1.  Writing

2.  Visual Literacy

3.  Project Management

4.  Technical/Computer Literacy

5.  Understanding how to use intellectual property in an ethical and socially acceptable manner