Storytelling – The 21st Century Way

In the beginning of the class, when we are told that we would be divided into groups to write a digital story, I was quite confused. I wasn’t sure what a digital story was. Besides the concept, I didn’t even know who would be in my group. After a few weeks, we were assigned our groups and explained how to write a story digitally. It was the first time I would be writing a story for a website or a blog. We were explained the concept and were told what all we could do to make our stories interesting.

Digital Storytelling, as the name suggests, is a form of storytelling that integrates the digital resources into the story, making it look more life-like. It lets you add digital media like pictures, videos, maps, audio, hyperlinks, tables, charts, etc. Due to these additions, the author can describe whatever he wants to describe and exactly how he wants to describe it. If the author ever runs out of words, he has something other than words to complete the story.

A few days before our page on Google sites was due, our group got together to continue the story from where the previous group had left it. Once we all gave our inputs, we knew what direction the story was heading towards. The more difficult part was deciding a title. After a brainstorming session, we decided to go with The Address as the title. Once we had penned the story down in rough, we decided to rewrite it in Google sites and digitalize it.

The Google sites interface was fairly easy to use. During school I had learned how to create a website using HTML but this was nothing like it. The interface was very easy and user-friendly. Adding media to the story gave it a complete new dimension. We could actually imagine the story in our mind as if it was a movie. The digital medium helped describe the story exactly how we wanted to. By adding media, everyone would be able to see it with the same view. Nobody could take out two meanings of that story.  

This assignment has been a learning experience for me from the beginning. Not only did I learn how to write a digital story, but also learned how to blog about its experience. Besides that, I also learned how to work in a group to collaborate ideas, creating something from scratch. Digital storytelling is an amazing concept, different from the mundane print that we have been used to reading. It attracts people who don’t like reading also to view it. With all the technological advancements and with the world going mobile, I think digital storytelling will soon take over the regular books and novels.