Reflection Journal
First Mini Digital Storytelling Project
In the beginning of the Digital Storytelling course, we created our first mini digital storytelling project. I made a short video that coincided with my poem that is published in my first full-length poetry collection: “By Astrolabes & Constellations“, entitled “King of Pentacles”. I recorded my audio simply using my cell phone recorder, transferred my audio file onto my desktop and uploaded it into Movie Maker. I integrated the pictures with my audio and used transition between the pictures to evoke a sense of movement.
Through our readings and shared resources in this course, I learned some new tools that I wasn’t aware of. I also was reminded that digital storytelling is not only audio and/or video presentations and made me reflect on my explanation on what digital storytelling is in my discussion post:
What is Digital Storytelling?
Storytelling is an innate human interaction which helps relay messages, exchange knowledge and bond with others. Throughout history, storytellers held positions of high esteem and power such as sages, court jesters, seers, and yes, politicians. They engaged their audience orally or on page—convincing and controlling the way people interpret and experience their world in all milieus.
Digital storytelling, however, transforms traditional storytelling using digital media. It aims to engage and form communities that can interject their opinions and experiences into a larger platform. Therefore, YouTube and Instagram influencers have been so popular because these individual storytellers engage their audience and have them as loyal viewers that keep returning for more.
I enjoyed the lessons of Pixar in a Box. For those who never took creative writing, I found this a very informative learning tool for them to understand the fictional devices that make a story exceptional. There are key elements and structure in successful storytelling particularly on screen like a movie or a video. Fictional techniques do not only apply to fictional stories on a page. They also apply how we view a story visually and digitally as well. Keep in mind, however, filmmakers are always pushing the boundaries of traditional film deconstructing its traditional structures, but does that make it less exceptional? I also enjoy stories from other countries. How are they telling their stories? I discovered Queensland University of Technology who has been offering Digital Storytelling courses since 2005 and has been showcasing their students’ work here: http://digitalstorytelling.ci.qut.edu.au/index.php/stories/ (Links to an external site.).
Digital storytelling is more than telling an individual story because it can be broad and can cross many genres. Online learning communities such as ours are engaging the pedagogical form of digital storytelling. According to Sara S. Goek, a Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow and Program Manager at the Association of College & Research Libraries states, “In the classroom it can facilitate active learning as students learn to plan and craft stories – like a research essay or creative writing assignment for the digital age” (ALA.org, 2018).
Digital storytelling also has transformed how we present historical archives. I was deeply moved by the video by University of Kentucky Libraries about the U.S. WWII veteran, Marshall Webb, and how his recorded interview in 1986 connected a researcher who was specifically looking to know more about this veteran because his name is still etched on a wall in the small Italian town, Tremensuoli, for his historical novel (ALA.org, 2018). This piqued my interest because I, too, am writing a historical novel based on WWII in the Philippines and I hope to discover oral and video archives of the people of this era.
The scientific and technical communities found it difficult presenting scientific and technical data to lay people. They have now found themselves acquiring digital storytelling skills to relay their information to the general public because “neurological studies have show[n] that non-narrative writing only engages the part of the brain that controls understanding. Stories, meanwhile, engage the brain as if the listener were actually there” (Penn State University Library Guides). As a techie myself who started off as a computer tech in the Army and years later still supporting institutions with their web and computer systems, I went into the field of creative writing (acquiring my MFA in Creative Writing) not knowing that these two skills need not be separate anymore! I am constantly looking for new ways to marry these two skills and found it easy for me to relay technical jargon in a storytelling digital presentation and thrive in environments that can do this such as this digital storytelling online course.
Sources:
Digital Storytelling – Stories. Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Retrieved from http://digitalstorytelling.ci.qut.edu.au/index.php/stories/ (Links to an external site.).
“Keeping Up With… Digital Storytelling”, American Library Association, February 14, 2018.
http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/storytelling (Links to an external site.).
Library Guides: Digital Storytelling: Home. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://guides.libraries.psu.edu/digitalstorytelling
Honoring the Creative Voice & the Ethical Practice of Digital Storytelling
I enjoyed watching the videos and doing the readings about the diverse perspectives in digital storytelling and watching Story Center’s Webinar: Introduction to Storytelling, I learned digital storytelling doesn’t mean being told primarily in a documentary story structure. Stories can be told as creatively and sparsely like miniatures and vignette. It is interesting that Rani states that it is akin to flash fiction — focusing in on one particular moment or experience and expounding on it in a small amount of words, and in digital storytelling, a small time frame window.
Also, what Story Center brought up at the end of their webinar is “Ethical Practice in Digital Storytelling”:
- Well Being (of the storyteller — having support from people, groups)
- Informed Choices
- Ownership
- Local Relevance
- Ethics as Process
- Ethics of Distribution
Honoring the creativity and personal voice, building media literacy and technology knowledge, evoking social change and civic engagement, and if the story helps informs can inevitably change policy, are the areas that give value to digital storytelling, from what Story Center states. I am excited to learn more about digital storytelling — because storytelling is at the heart and learning all about the various applications and technology that one can utilize as a vehicle to tell the story is what makes it the more intriguing.
Wrapping It Up:
Reflections on My Final Project
I inevitably wanted to do another video presentation for my final digital storytelling project. This time I wanted to use video clips and audio. First I proposed to narrate one of my non-fiction pieces, but they were a bit lengthy and capturing video that will coincide with the scenes proved really challenging.
So I narrowed down my scope and recorded me signing Billie Holiday’s song “God Bless the Child” with free stock video I acquired and pieced them together to make a contiguous statement using MovieMaker. I recorded my song again by singing into the recording application on my cell phone and transferred that audio clip and uploaded it to Movie Maker. I felt this piece told a story particularly the last frame where the man with a gas mask moves in slow motion, making the statement of looking at a possible dystopian future.
By the Stacks 