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Everybody likes to tell a story — especially one about him or herself. In effort to merge traditional storytelling with multimedia capabilities, I would like to propose teaching a seminar in digital storytelling. Although the storytelling is an ancient art, it can be paired with digital media to produce a final product that anyone, especially students, are happy to share with others. I am a librarian and a computer teacher. In this digital story exercise, I extend student's literary skills by asking them to write a short essay about themselves; then illustrate the story with digital or scanned pictures. The final step is to combine the text with the images using Microsoft Moviemaker. Music can also be added as a background accompaniment. As a personal narrative, the students can imagine or tell a story about anything — themselves, their peers, their families, or a topic of their interest. The purpose of the exercise is to challenge the students to write and communicate about issues that are on their minds and are important to them. Students who become familiar with the format of digital storytelling find that they can turn their own personal narratives into a powerful verbal and visual communication vehicle. In this workshop I propose to explain digital storytelling and with the aid of a computer show the conference attendees how to produce their own digital stories using pen and paper, a digital camera or scanned images, and a computer with Microsoft XP or Mac iMovie.

Stream: Literacy, Educational Resources and Learning, Information Society, and Print and Electronic Texts

Paper: Digital Storytelling

In addition to working with students grades 7-12 as a library and computer lab instructor, I am also a first year doctoral candidate at the University of Virginia.