Digital Storytelling
a course to be taken in about four weeks
This course is adapted with thanks from Lori Jakiela’s course material, and is offered to fulfill a core requirement in the Digital Studies Certificate program at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg.
The key idea here is to learn narrative techniques that apply digital tools, working with blogs, photo essays, podcasts, sound compositions, short video clips that combine together with words to produce narratives shared mindfully with audiences in a digital environment. We’ll concentrate on learning how by reviewing successful blogs and sites incorporating multimedia in a manner that shares moving stories. We’ll work with great care on how images and sound are not merely illustrations but necessary to the delivery of meaningful and moving content.
a human crayon from Prof. Jakiela’s Digital Storytelling syllabus
I’m importing this image from Prof. Jakiela’s syllabus, because it helps to convey how an image can convey character, emotion, and be integral to a concept. You may create your own digital compositions in this course or “remix” others into your own, providing some reference and a link outward when you do so.
Assignments
Blog (25%)
We’ll begin by establishing and maintaining a web presence. You’ll create a blog and link supporting social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) to it. Your blog will focus on – and showcase – your development as a digital storyteller. You’ll use your blog to turn in class projects, respond to assignments, experiment with new techniques, interact with your classmates and professors, and more. You’ll be required to keep your blog active by making at least one unique post and linking to one new blog or other kind of site each week. Your blog should help you develop a keen sense of voice, audience, and purpose.
Image + Design Projects/2 (5%)
You will create two small image + design projects of your choice. You can choose from the following list: a meme (or sequence of memes equivalent to two projects); an animated GIF; an infographic; a digital poster or collage; a visual timeline or other visual/digital element that can be used to illustrate or complement a traditional narrative.
Photo Essay/Travelogues/2 (20%)
You will learn how digital images and technologies interact with traditional narrative writing by producing two photo essay/travelogues. The balance between images/digitized content and written narrative should be 50/50 and the text and digital elements should work together to tell a story that couldn’t be told using simply one or the other technique.
Audio + Sound Project/1 (25%)
You’ll choose one of the following projects:
A podcast/radio essay.
You’ll record, edit and produce a 15-minute podcast that will include a scripted narrative, an interview/conversation, and music or sound effects. OR
A sound essay.
You’ll use found sounds as a way to tell or interweave with narrative. You can, for example, record the sounds of a busy diner while interviewing a waitress about her work. Or you can record a poet reading a poem, then intersperse sound elements that enhance the experience for the listener.
Short Video Story/1 (25%)
You’ll script, shoot, and edit your own short (under 3 minutes) narrative film. Your film could be a book trailer, an animated short, a sequence of edited found images that your weave together into unique content, a visual memoir/essay, a video poem or short story, etc.
Resources for Building
As we proceed with this course, we’ll store and comment here on these GitHub pages some resources to assist in digital storytelling, including models we admire and tools for making things like drawing cartoons and editing digital video.