Digital Storytelling and Collaboration

Digital storytelling is a great educational tool to use to capture your audience, keep their attention, and get your ideas across.  The YouTube video discusses the 7 elements of digital storytelling: a point of view, a dramatic question, emotion (used to hold the attention of the audience), voice (even if you are scared, your voice will capture attention), soundtrack, economy, and pacing.  I previously thought I was kind of telling a story with my Prezi on delegation but looking back it was only a presentation that lacked the charisma of a story.  I have discovered in the last two weeks that a presentation can also be a story which will be entertaining and informative.  Using a story to teach may even be a better way to have the audience remember the content than a presentation alone.  I can remember a lot of the aspects of a good movie but only remember what was not so good in a bad movie, but I remember some points.  I don't think my Prezi presentation was very memorable but that is what this semester is about, learning and growing.   I think I will use the same content from my Prezi but use a different technology and make a story instead of only a presentation.  I think it is all how you approach the project and with what mindset.  I want to grab my viewers attention and keep it so they remember what I am trying to teach.  My next presentation will be in the form of a story and I'll do a better job to keep the attention of my audience which in turn may educate as well.

I started to play with Microsoft Photo Story 3.  Above is a YouTube video of how to use it.  I chose my pictures to have in my movie and then added a title on each one.  It allows for voice recordings rather easily for each photo and has space for you to write your script on each picture so you can easily read and record each one.  I chose how I wanted each photo to transition and how long to display each photo.  Photo Story 3 lets you add background music from your computer or create your own from templates that are installed in the program, however, it was not easy to add my music from I-tunes even though it is given as an option.   It is not as easy to navigate or create as Animoto is and it does not allow a URL to be created for sharing.  However, it would only be good to be viewed on your own computer or email the video for viewing.  I would not want to use this for a project because it cannot be downloaded and shared easily.  I was having trouble using it on Windows 8 and found the following link to help install it  Windows 8 help.

A great site my instructor, Dr. May, shared is from the University of Houston, University of Houston- digital storytelling.  This site not only has wonderful examples of digital stories, one of my favorites is by Bethany Sacks, A Surgeons Perspective on Medical Television Shows but the site also helps with writing a script, creating storyboards, creating photo collages, recording and editing digital audio, and using Photo Story 3.  All of this information will be helpful with my next project and I have been learning a lot.  I only used two voice recordings in my Prezi but after learning some more I will need to add additional voice recordings and get over how bad I think my voice sounds.  I will be prepared and start with a written script like the University of Houston site suggests.

I have been working on numerous group projects lately for school and my job and have been learning how to use Google Drive.  I really like that I can access documents from my work computer, home computer, and even my smart phone.  I had to learn and play to figure it out but it is really simple once I got it.  Of course I have added a YouTube video on Google Drive, because again I am a visual learner and learn best from watching first then doing.  The video is very detailed on all aspects of Google Drive so it is a little lengthy but I like it.
The video states you can create presentations on Google Drive, that is something I will play with this week to see what type of presentation I can create and if it like a "presentation" or digital storytelling.  Zoho is another collaboration tool, I do not think it is as user friendly as Google Drive simply because I can access my Google Drive documents from any where and cannot access my Zoho files on my phone.  We do live in the age when we use our phones for many things, convenience for any technology is the key.

Life Hacker Collaboration tools is a site that lists numerous collaboration tools.  It is worth checking out if you do a lot of collaborative projects.  It also discusses Cozi, which is an app my family uses to sync our calendars so we all know what we have planned which helps us not overbook activities.  Collaboration tools are not only for the office and school but is important to collaborate at home as well to keep things running smoothly.