Digital Storytelling

Stories come alive

   Stories are inherent in human culture. We all love hearing and telling stories. In EFL classrooms, stories have had and will most probably continue to have their well-deserved place too. However, the only constant in the world we live in is the change. Modern technology enables us to refresh our understanding of the traditional paper and pen story writing. 

   Digital storytelling is the art of combining storytelling with some mixture of digital graphics. Digital stories abandon the notion of paper-based storytelling and make full use of sound and picture to enhance the story-telling experience. Have a look here to see some examples of digistories.

   The integration of digital sound and picture in EFL seems quite an intriguing and promising idea. The benefits are many and, arguably, outnumber the possible caveats. It's no surprise that a story with good visuals is a treasure for every child.  Remember how you turned the pages of the book with the hope of finding the pictures? Remember how words alone weren't enough for you? Or how you relished the changes in your mother's voice as she read a story at your bed? Confess to yourself, as a child you sometimes refused to give a chance to a pictureless book. This is because a book with only text is an almost-dead book. In a sense, it's like an unsociable child, reserved and reluctant to communicate. This may not be a problem for a book-loving adult but teenegers and especially children will probably cherish  good, powerful visuals and sound effects.

   Having said all of the above, I'd also like to stress out that making good digistories is an art. Both the visuals and the sound need to supplement the story and enhance the experience and not just repeat the same story. Therefore, a good deal of skill, talent and creativity is needed to make a good digistory. 

  So should our students create and consume  digistories? The research and the numerous examples in the net eloquently enough say "yes". You never know the potential of a tool unless you give it a chance and explore. In my opinion, digistories are worth to be given a chance and have quite a future.

  On a final note, here's a digistory I created myself. I used one of the 3D templates of Prezi which immediately set my story in the right context: a deep, maigical forest. I also added some sounds and ... ok, let's leave the old-fashioned texting. Let THE STORY come alive.