Digital+Story

Digital Storytelling is the practice of using computer-based tools to tell stories. As with traditional storytelling, most digital stories focus on a specific topic and contain a particular point of view. However, as the name implies, digital stories usually contain some mixture of computer-based images, text, recorded audio narration, video clips and/or music. Digital stories can vary in length, but most of the stories used in education typically last between two and ten minutes. And the topics that are used in Digital Storytelling range from personal tales to the recounting of historical events, from exploring life in one's own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between.

A variety of different software applications are available that can be used in the creation of digital stories. In addition to high-end applications such as Macromedia Flash and Adobe Premiere, two higher-end, software programs that are suitable for developing digital stories that can include a wide range of media types, there are many other less expensive, and more user-friendly applications that educators and their students can use to create high-quality digital stories.

Many such software options may be obtained for free or for a relatively inexpensive cost, while several excellent tools come integrated into popular computer operating systems and may already be available to those with access to a current model Windows PC or Apple Macintosh. The list below includes some of the software programs we recommend for getting started with Digital Storytelling.

Microsoft Photo Story 3 (PC only) [] Windows Movie Maker (PC only) [] Apple iMovie (Mac only) []

Resource:  [|http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/index.html __January 18, 2010__]