Valbona Pahumi

Media 3600
Dr.Mirrer
Digital storytelling has become one of the newest technological advances in

communication. Digital storytelling is a combination of media and voiceover that represents a

story told by the narrator. It has been recognized in newspapers, magazines,and also a website

designed to post digital stories for the entire world to view.

“How to Tell stories, one byte at a time” is an article posted in The Denver Post. This

article discusses different ways to tell stories comparing a Japanese form called pecha kucha-

meaning “chitchat”, personal narratives, performances on stage, and an oral history presentation.

Founder of The Denver Center for Digital Storytelling, Daniel Weinshenker, runs the non-profit

organization that teaches how to use digtial media to tell stories. Weinshenker attended a digital

storytelling festival in Creste Butte and their workshop in California before opening up his own

center. Helping people tell their stories is the goal.

Therfore, Storytelling workshops are set up every two months with enrollment of

participants in advance. Many of the workshops are for good causes like HIV/AIDS and

Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The workshop aims to help people find simpler ways to

tell individual story in their viewpoint or experience. Weinshenker and staff go around countries

and teach people how to speak the language of the screen. They do not consider themselves a

production team, they look at themselves as trainers in technology.

Next, is the article “Digital Art and Soul” in the The Monthly magazine. This article also

recognizes the Center for Digital Storytelling and how it has spread this language around the

world through its locations in Denver, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Canada. A woman

attended a three day workshop and was told to focus on personal expirience and tell a story about

it . She felt that she couldnt do it because she did not have anything spectacular or miraculous

happen in her life. The woman was discouraged by other workshops she attended that wanted
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Dr.Mirrer
detailed epic descriptions of life drama. The CDS workshop encouraged her to organize her

thoughts and decides to focus on a personal story. Artistry is not the main point of this

technology. It is a process of learning how to accomplish your story in an artistic way using

advanced tools in technology.

Along with the two articles comes a website that offers views of digital stories, The

Center for Digital Storytelling. Here the organization posts stories that people make in the

workshops. The trainers consider themselves trainers of trainees because once this information is

learned by one person it can be passed onto the next. In the previous article, Weinshenker

mentioned that if he is not around doing this in five years that he would have succeeded because

by then digital storytelling will be just another simplified advancement.

In relation to my own digital stories, I can agree with the woman who felt she did not

have a story because she did not have anything miraculous to talk about. That is the same feeling

I had when I began to think about writing my first digital story. I did not know what i could

possibly write about until my professor, Dr. Mirrer, encouraged me to find something in my life

that I would like to tell a story about. Since I have a close relationship with my brother and seem

to always be talking about him, I began writing a story about him adding some mystery to it.

That was the art of the story, trying to make it mysterious so that the listener/viewer wants to

know why you wanted to tell this story and its significance.

After learning how to make a digital story I had the assignment of teaching someone how

to make a digital story. This task helped refresh my memory on making a digital story. I decided

to tech my 16 year-old cousin how to make a digital story. First, I asked her what story she would

like to tell or if anything is going on in her life right now that she would like to tell? She

immediately wanted to talk about her junior prom. I found this interesting so i asked what was
Valbona Pahumi
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Dr.Mirrer
significant to her that night and she replied saying, “finding my dress.” I asked her to write it

down and at the end add a little twist to it so that it does not completely tell the story. This

seemed to be a lot easier for her to learn in a few hours than it was for me in a week. It was not

hard for her to think of something that seemed amazing in her life, then again at the age of 16

everything is a big deal.

The next step was to teach her the digital part. It must be the youths connection with

video and technological advances because she caught on in about ten minutes. The only step that

seemed foreign to her as the Final Cut Pro Program and Soundtrack Pro program. After a few

hours of learning she came up with a story on a prom dress and even added music to it. I felt like

I accomplished a big goal, it felt good to teach someone something I learned and watch them tell

their story through it.

Although, a prom dress is not something that can help recognize a cause, there are digital

stories recognizing organizations and people. With easy to use technology like I-Movie it is

becoming easier to make digital storytelling more democratic. This program is available on Mac

computers and provides the user with a six minute tutorial on how to use the program.

Conversely, if anyone can make a digital story and tell their significant story to the world,

this advancement can change the world. It will make it easier for creators to get their stories

across to the world, especially with mediums like Youtube. Though the news programs use a

form of digital storytelling when they tell news, technological advances can help make it easier

to get the story out to the public faster. Also, digital storytelling allows people to to tell a story

about a disease an issue, a recovery, and allows a connection between a group or personal story

to world.
Valbona Pahumi
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Dr.Mirrer
Digital Storytelling allows pictures to be added to a personal story. This in the end makes

a better understanding of what the story is about. Whether the pictures make it funny or just

something to look at while listening to the person. In addition to adding art to the story, the

pictures create a language between the viewer and the creator. From personal experience, I have

noticed when listening to a digital story made by someone with an accent or obvious use of

english as a second language, when I thought the speaker was hard to understand I focused on

the pictures and it made the story clear. Understanding digital storytelling will help me create

future feature news stories which in turn will help me in my career.