Beyond Method #9: Tell a (Digital) Story

Discovery Exercise:

1. Of the three simpler digital storytelling methods choose one and create a short example in which you tell a story.

Mixbook: Here is a "scrapbook" I created to show a year in review at the library. It was not difficult to figure out how to use this tool, but it was a little tedious. My biggest problem was with saving my work. Mixbook did not always save my pages as I thought, and I had to re-do them, sometimes several times. I also had some trouble embedding my slideshow, as it did not seem to load properly when I published my post.

2.  Animoto : I took photos of the wildlife living in the area, and these photos were used in the creation of a mural for our Children's Area. Some of my photos arehighlighted in this Animoto segment:


Animoto was very easy to use, but the free version is limited to 30 seconds and only a few photos. The creation process is automatic and does not give you a lot of control. I would have chosen a different order for my photos to appear, but I did not have a say.

Xtranormal is another interesting way to tell a story. Here is a short clip I created in hopes that I could bypass my regularly scheduled performance review.  P.S. It didn't work.

                           Alternative Performance Review


3. Most of the examples shown are far more sophisticated than I have equipment to produce. I think I could use the simpler methods above to "tell a digital story" in the branch blog on my library home page. I could also create some animated versions to run on the photo frame in our lobby, and perhaps show one of them in an outreach presentation in our community. Lately, because we have been short-staffed due to a hiring freeze and layoffs, we have created CDs to "tell our summer reading club story" to the schools in our area, rather than have staff visit each school. These kinds of digital stories would be good to include on those CDs.