RSC NewsFeed

Over the course of this session we’ve given increasing prominence to digital storytelling, an area where emerging technologies are being used in new and original ways to shape a fresh and evolving art form. To catch a flavour of how this evolution is progressing have a look at Inanimate Alice the story of a young girl growing up in the first half of the 21st century told in a way that wasn’t really possible before the 21st century.

Is this the future and does it work?

Over the last year we’ve given increasing prominence to digital storytelling as the expertise in this area built up and new tools arrived to make the whole process of constructing digital stories so much simpler. Here is a short but comprehensive overview from the University of Notre Dame which covers all of the main bases and offers examples and tutorials of telling stories digitally.

Over the past year in NewsFeed we’ve paid a lot of attention to digital storytelling in the wake of the release of a number of tools such as Animoto and Xtranormal which bring the capacity to tell a story in new and original ways to the desktop. Stage’d is another such tool which allows the user to create animated comics which can be set against a series of backgrounds where the script that you’ve written is enacted by digital characters.

With 10 new case studies added during March, there are now almost 30 e-learning stories from around south west Scotland to inspire you and is aimed at showing and sharing innovative practice around the region. You can access the case studies page here.

On our site you’ll also find a web page for each of our supported institutions where we can shine a spotlight on local case studies, videos, podcasts and any other resources that reflect our work to support institutions exploit new technologies for learning & teaching. Our initiative will culminate in a “Best of the West” event on 3rd June 2010 at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Another recent release from Microsoft Education in an area that we’ve featured recently in NewsFeed is a Digital Storytelling e-book designed to show how digital tools, principally PhotoStory and Live Movie Maker (both available as free downloads) can be used to bring the ancient art of storytelling into the 21st Century. The e-book can be downloaded at no cost

This site provides a step-by step guide into yet another method of making stories come to life digitally. It’s a resource for educators and young people who want to learn more about how to create stopmotion and claymation which taks you thrpough all the steps from generating the story idea and storyboarding it through to the final cut. Once again most of the materials needed will cost little or nothing. Check out the fine example of the stop motion from below courtesy of  You Tube and visit the Making Stopmotion Movies site.

Over the last few years we’ve featured a series of online sites where you can use your pictures and videos to generate short movies (Animoto is probably the best-known example).

Now another contender has entered the ranks in the shape of Flixtime where you can upload images, videos and text, choose a tune as background music and the programme will mash the ingredients together to create a short video which can then be shared. Yet another way to tell your stories online.

February also sees the return of the popular series of lunch-time broadcasts created and delivered by staff from the two Scottish Regional Support Centres. Sessions start at 12:30, just click on the titles to book a place!

Since the last edition of NewsFeed the death has been announced of American author and legendary recluse J.D. Salinger whose fame largely originated from the publication of ‘The Catcher in the Rye back in 1951, a novel now regularly studied in schools and colleges around the world. To mark his passing the New York Times published an article and an interesting interactive map of the journey of the book’s teenage narrator, Holden Caulfield, as moves around in Manhattan during the novel. A useful study aid as well as an interesting use of interactive mapping technology.

Image Manhattan Bridge with Full Moon by ajagendorf25 from Flickr used under Creative Commons

The library of very useful reference works on Digital Storytelling grows apace with this comprehensive 120 page guide which covers the rationale behind this growing field, how the techniques can be used and then goes on to deliver basic ‘how2s’ of some of the basic technologies used to tell stories electronically.

There are detailed overviews of Audacity, Google Maps and PhotoStory (to name but three) and, best of all, the whole publication can be downloaded to a desktop near you at no cost. Download  Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and live happily ever after! (The guide was written by Silvia Tolisano who runs her own Langwitches Blog itself well worth a look.)