Digital Storytelling Workshops

ABOUT THE WORKSHOPS

Interested in exploring the power of digital storytelling to help students engage more deeply with class material and improve their digital communication skills? If so, you might first want to try producing a project yourself, to see what’s involved in the process and to have a sample to show students.

I offer two-hour hands-on workshops that guide you through the process of brainstorming topics, gathering media, preparing a storyboard, assembling media in iMovie, applying effects and transitions, and producing a rough cut of a 4 to 5 minute digital storytelling project you can continue to work on later.

The workshop will allow you to:

  • discover the relative ease of composing with digital media
  • experience the feeling of personal investment inspired by telling personal stories with multiple media
  • consider how digital storytelling projects might reinforce some of the same critical thinking and communication skills as written projects
  • explore their potential to equip students with the communication skills of the future, which extend beyond the scope of text-based writing

We may also have time to discuss assignment design and assessment in light of disciplinary criteria.

PREPARATION

You’ll get the most out of this workshop if you have time to do a little preparation beforehand, including brainstorming a possible topic, gathering some digital materials, and setting up an account on a video hosting site, as described on these pages:

If you don’t have time to do any preparation, however, that’s okay — please feel free to join us anyway!

I will try to assemble some “stock” story materials you can use, such as a few photos, video clips, and other media files that relate to a particular theme. You can then focus on learning how to use the digital composition tools during the workshop, with the goal of making your own story later.

If you have time for nothing else, I recommend that you at least take a look at Chapters 1-4 of the Digital Storytelling Cookbook (PDF) from the Center for Digital Storytelling and also browse some sample Digital Storytelling projects.

WHAT TO BRING WITH YOU

iMovie ’11
We’ll be using iMovie ’11 to assemble digital stories, so you may either bring your own Mac with iMovie installed or use one of the lab Macs. I recommend that you plan to use the Mac version of iMovie and not the iPad version.

Ear buds
As part of the process of assembling a digital story, we will sample a variety of audio clips we might include in our projects, so to avoid the chaos of lots of computers playing audio tracks at the same time, I recommend that you bring a pair of ear buds or earphones with you.

Portable Storage
If you plan to use a lab Mac, I highly recommend that you bring with you either a USB thumb drive that holds 2gb or more or a portable HD, so you can save your iMovie project file to work on elsewhere.

You’ll be able to export a “web ready” version of the file you can upload to the web and download on your home computer, but the original project file will be too large to transmit this way. Zipping and saving the file to an account on Dropbox or Google Docs is another option.

External Microphone
If you happen to have an external mic or headset that will work on your own laptop or on a MacBook, please bring it with you! We’ll do some sample recordings and an external mic will make it more likely that you’ll be able to hear your own voice rather than everyone in the room.

REQUIREMENTS

  • Some familiarity with the basics of managing files and launching applications on a Mac is ideal, but not required
  • Access to iMovie ’11 (may be provided at some locations)
  • No iMovie experience needed

RESOURCES

Handouts
Browse the relevant categories and tags in the sidebar for help with various aspects of the digital storytelling process.

Presentation Notes
Here are the notes that accompanied my presentation on Digital Storytelling for the 2011 PWR Digital Composition Workshop, minus the playable video clips. These notes are for a presentation on the pedagogy and practice of digital storytelling, not a hands-on workshop.

Most of my hands-on resources are available on the main DigitalWriting101.net site, but the presentation I created for the AISL conference provides hands-on instruction in iMovie ’11. (This presentation was chosen to be featured on the front page of Slideshare.net the day after I posted it!)

SCHEDULE A WORKSHOP

If you’re interested in having me lead a workshop for your K-12 or higher ed group, please contact me. I offer two-hour, full day, and week-long workshops on Digital Storytelling to educators at all levels.

Past Workshops