Digital Storytelling, Week 1

Wow, what a first week of class. I am very excited to learn about this topic of digital storytelling and how it can influence my future presentations and/or family. This week we read the Presentation Zen and I learned a great deal about how to better my future presentations to make them more effective (which is always a goal of mine), but also to really feel that my students may actually retain the information presented.

The first part of the book discussed how the use of PowerPoint has been a negative on many presentations around the world. The use of this program, or really any slide-share program, must be thought out carefully and deliberately. Each presentation is different so if a presentation does not need such technology, don't complicate the issue by adding it.

We also read about digital storytelling in the book DigiTales. This book is a great tool as it discusses how each one of us can tell our own stories, and keep them in a digital world...forever. I think of my Nana, who is approaching 90 years this upcoming year, and how awesome it would be to document her life growing up in Minnesota and joining the Marine Corps. Moving to Hawaii and meeting my grandfather, who was also a Marine, eventually falling in love, having 5 children and eventually settling down in Wisconsin. Digital storytelling is all about collecting those memories and documenting them, including printed photo's, documents, or other stories, and putting them all together into one presentation. What a great opportunity.

We also learned a great deal about how presentations online can be great stories, and some not so great. I viewed a few sites from the digital storytelling site and found some interesting sites that I would not ordinarily search. These are still great tools, even if just to learn what not to do.

Great week, looking forward to the rest.