What in the World is a Digital Story?

I have watched about a million digital stories on YouTube over the years, but I never knew that was what I was watching. I also never knew how much work it was to put those three short minutes of picture/video to music. I have never given much thought to how digital stories were made. Now that I am starting to comprehend the process, I almost wish that I was still ignorant!

Knowing how to make and teach students to make a digital story will be a great resource for me. Because I will be teaching PE, it will be great to be able to make a story with clips, quotes, and great moments from sports. It will be a great way to begin a new unit, or teach a new skill. Also letting the students make a digital story as an assignment, or an alternative to an assignment, will be great.

I could use a digital story to stay connected with colleagues. I could collaborate on a story with other teachers that are in my content area, or teachers from other subjects. For instance, I could use a digital story to teach about a sport from a different country, and a foreign language teacher could also use it in their classroom. I think that digital stories are so popular with teachers because they catch the interest of the students and can help create an atmosphere for what is being taught. You can convey any feeling with a digital story by adding the right music to a piece. It can add so much to a lesson.

I think that the biggest problem with digital stories is that they are so time consuming. It takes a lot of work to put together three minutes of good video. If a digital story is not put together well it is obvious in the final project.

Our video this week about NASA was very well done. At the beginning of the video where Pres. Kennedy was talking, I had the feeling of excitement and pride in the US. Then when it began telling of all of the people who had lost their lives to reach the moon and other goals, it made me feel the opposite. The different situations, being asphyxiated before even taking off, or burning up on re-entry, were devastating. It was strange to feel those different emotions so close together, in such a short amount of time. That is what is great about a digital story, the feeling.