Digital storytelling is a multimedia storytelling process that combines photography, music, and spoken word to capture one’s lived experiences and increase understanding of these experiences. Although digital storytelling has strong roots in education, community engagement, and participatory research. Your goal in this assignment is to work with the senior participant to create a digital story for the senior using a digital storytelling tool you prefer. There are different ways and several steps for digital storytelling making and sharing. The common steps usually include: Develop Ideas, Plan, Outline/script, Storyboard, Film and Record, Finalize, Publish and Share, and Evaluate.
Step 1: Develop Ideas. After your life history interview with the senior, you need to develop some ideas about digital storytelling. These questions may be helpful: what purpose do you have for the digital story? What is the title of the story? What do you want to present through the story? What makes the story unique? What impact might the story have on other people? How to present the story through digital technologies? What digital storytelling software do you want to use to present the story? Who will tell the story? Who is your audience? What challenges and difficulties might you meet and what strategies you and your interviewee will be used to solve those challenges?
Step 2: Plan. Review back your digital story ideas you have had about, develop a plan for the digital storytelling assignment.Some helpful tips might be:
Set goals for your planning process. These goals help to track your progress and provide a snapshot of the assignment from start to finish. Your goals can include items like finishing an outline or finding a tool or resource. Simple goals will help keep this project manageable. Set goals that connect with your storytelling process but remember – the main goal is to share the story of the senior you interviewed.
Timeline: you may need to review all of the steps first and then set a timeline for each step of the digital storytelling process; create check-in days to track your progress; record your successes and challenges;
Resources: think about what challenges and resources you will need to complete the digital story such as software, videos, images you will use for the digital story.