Digital storytelling for beginners

       With the development of cutting-edge technology, storytelling is no longer restricted to the traditional way that parents or teachers holding a book and reading stories to children. There is a new

way to tell story which is not only easy to conduct but also more fascinating—digital storytelling, the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component.

       Wow, it seems like to create one digital story you should prepare so many things. Don’t get bewildered! Although groups of students can collaborate on digital stories, the form is well suited to projects by individual users. Most digital storytelling programs promote the notion that users with little or no technical background should be able to create digital stories. For beginners, I have a good suggestion: paying so much attention on digital technic is unnecessary, starting by focusing on script and writing a good story is more effective.

       Why is digital storytelling significant to education? The cooperative learning process of debate, discussion, and reflection that students engage in as they work together to storyboard, shoot, and edit

their digital stories is critical to the learning process. (The educational uses of digital storytelling) As we can see, through creating an original story, students can practice logical thinking and writing skills, which involves using learned knowledge and acquiring new knowledge needed in this procedure.
      
       How to use digital storytelling in classroom? Firstly, give students a clear example of how to create a digital story. It doesn’t need to contain too much cool digital effect, but rather focus on procedure instruction, step by step. Secondly, give students a concrete topic to write about, for example, to create a newly version fairy tale which they can imagine happened in nowadays. Students can do group work so that they can learn how to write cooperatively and make their story more completed and creative. Thirdly, students can find pictures and videos around their story to make it attracting. For each step, teachers would better give feedback and assistance in time, good suggestions and encouragement can be a good motivation for them to fulfill the task excellently.