Personal Digital Story Reflection

Creating a digital story was a new adventure. Joe Lambert’s (2010) Digital Storytelling Cookbook was an excellent source to guide me as I began to ponder what I wanted to tell and how I was going to tell it. At first, I thought the hardest part was going to be deciding what story I wanted to tell since I don’t publicly share that much about myself. However, it was more difficult to decide what photos to use and how to arrange them to effectively portray my story. The process as a whole could take any amount of time to complete depending on how you approach the project. I still cannot decide if it is better to have a story script written and then find photos to support it or have the photos and then write the story script. Maybe it all depends on what presents itself at the moment.

Creating a digital story gave me several new tools to work with. This was my first time to use PhotoStory3. I found it was user friendly and easy to work with. I also learned about dropbox.com (2011) and how to use it to share files with others. This came in handy when I was collecting pictures for my story. Some of the pictures I wanted to use were from my family members’ albums. Dropbox.com was the quickest, easiest way to obtain the photos, and it gave me the opportunity to share what I had learned about the site with others. In addition, I created TeacherTube and YouTube accounts. I was unsuccessful in uploading my digital story to TeacherTube in a couple of ways. First, the video wouldn’t fully upload and I kept receiving a “generic upload error”. Second, I tried to search the site for clues to what could be wrong and couldn’t find an immediate answer, but I did discover they have a tech support department that can answer questions. This doesn’t always give immediate results, so I decided I would try YouTube. It uploaded with one try, rather quickly. I would still like to know what caused the error with TeacherTube for future reference.

I used a lot of trial and error to complete this project and I have found that I learn best using this method. It helps me fully understand what is happening and why I should or should not do something. I learned several things about storytelling and its applications. “Storytelling is a vital skill with seemingly unlimited applications” (New, 2005). Throughout this project, this statement kept coming to mind. Everyone has a story, if not several, to share. Bringing stories into education can be what draws a student into the learning process. It can give them the opportunity to share about themselves or what they have learned, but most of all it can make them feel important and give them the chance to express themselves. It is a good way to help celebrate who the student is and get to know them personally.

Dropbox.com. (2011). Dropbox. Retrieved from http://www.dropbox.com/

Lambert, J. (2010). Digital storytelling cookbook. Retrieved from http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf

New, J. (2005). How to use digital storytelling in your classroom. Edutopia. Retrieved November 17, 2011, from http://www.edutopia.org/use-digital-storytelling-classroom