Award Winning Digital Storytelling Projects

Bring the outside world into the classroom! Digital stories help students find their “voice.”

People love to hear and tell stories. Students share stories about their families, friends, favorites, and travels. It’s been said “everyone has a story to tell.” Digital storytelling gives children the opportunity to reflect on their experiences and use their imaginations.

Up until now digital storytelling has been too technical for many students and teachers to successfully accomplish. By using the templates and resources in this kit, schoolchildren of almost any age can tell their stories through images, text and sound and share their stories with others.

Award Winning Digital Storytelling Projects is a toolkit that makes it easy for students to create digital stories and helps teachers implement digital storytelling into their classrooms. The templates cover a wide variety of grade levels, curriculum areas and writing styles. The stories can be built with variety of video or slideshow editing software.

Use stories as:

• Personal expression
• Narratives
• Persuasive writing
• Fact-based reports
• Personal narratives
• Instructional information
• Historical stories
• Book reports
• Expository essays

Communicate with:

• Words
• Pictures
• Graphics
• Motion pictures
• Voice
• Music
• Sounds

Benefits:

• Develops reading and writing skills
• Enhances creativity
• Fosters knowledge management
• Develops visual literacy skills
• Develops technology skills
• Work can be tied to national standards
• Fosters presentation skills
• Provides an audience for student writing
• Fun and motivational
• Provides a good outlet for personal expression and can be therapeutic

Features:

• More than two dozen “digital story starter” templates covering a wide range of curriculum areas and writing styles
• Student worksheets and teacher lesson plans to accompany each digital story starter
• Resource folders of images, music and sound effects
• Ten step model for developing a digital story
• Chapter on production and project management tips
• Rubrics for evaluating digital stories

The project instructions are generic enough that they can be used with a variety of software including: iMovie, Corel VideoStudio, Adobe Premiere Elements, Photoshop Elements, Microsoft Photo Story, MovieMaker or PowerPoint.

Compatability: CD-ROM contents readable by both Mac and Windows computer systems. Create the digital stories with your existing video or slideshow editing software (free and trial versions included on CD). Templates use the free Adobe reader program to be filled out with.

Author: Arnie Abrams Ph.D.

Grades 2 - Adult