No Googling, no cheating. It’s time to just use what’s currently stored and available for recall in this here brain of mine to answer the question: What is Digital Storytelling?
Let’s focus on the first part of the second word: Story. And here’s my brain’s in-depth analysis: Story, is like, what happened. What happened to the thing to get that thing where it is today. And by today I mean whenever the present of the story is, which could be in the past or future. And by what happened I mean that it didn’t necessarily happen for real. Someone might have made it up. Even if it’s a true story there’s probably some embellishing for fun. So yeah, that’s story: the things that happened, are happening, will happen, or will have been happening (ah, you never get to use the future perfect continuous tense!)
The second part: Telling. The telling part is where the magic happens. And by magic I mean effort and enthusiasm. The more oomph you put in your story, the better. A mundane story about picking up your dry cleaning can be made great (or, to be more realistic, listenable) by some ooomph in your telling. How do I oomph, you may ask? Well, oomph it up with details, background, emphasis, passion, whatever. Hey I’m at the early stages of learning about digital storytelling. Someone else is going to tell me how to oomph. I’ll get back to you on that.
That takes us to the fancy part: Digital. We say it first in the term Digital Storytelling, but it’s more logical to describe it last. The digital part is where we get to cheat. A picture is worth a thousand words so other fancy things are worth extra free words too. Sounds (+500 words), GIFS, (+1750), videos (+500-10000). These numbers are approximate. When we tell a story in person with our voice and body, we can add oomph with gestures and intonation and expressions. The digital part, when we want to throw this on the Internet for the whole cosmos to see, is how we can oomph online. So, wish me luck learning to oomph. I’ll need some.