Digital storytelling

Digital storytelling involves creating multimodal, or multimedia, narratives. A digital story typically involves some combination of text, images, audio and/or video structured into a narrative.

Digital storytelling is not a tool as such, but rather a technique which can involve a whole variety of different web 2.0 tools and/or mobile apps. Mobile devices like smartphones or tablets are frequently used to take the photos and make the audio or video recordings (see also the multimedia recording page) which are combined to create digital stories, with the creation of the final stories taking place either on the mobile devices themselves or on laptop or desktop computers. In this way, digital storytelling is linked not only to web 2.0 learning but also to mobile learning.

Because of the way it draws together a range of language, literacy, presentation, and ICT skills, digital storytelling is becoming an increasingly common educational activity. Digital stories may be individually or collaboratively created, and may be static, dynamic or even interactive. They offer an ideal opportunity for students to hone digital literacies such as multimodal literacy (in creating multimedia digital stories which communicate their messages effectively to their intended target audiences) and network literacy (in disseminating their own digital stories, and accessing and commenting on peers’ digital stories). The final products can be included in students’ PLEs or e-portfolios. Note that if students show their faces or reveal their identities in their digital stories, it may be advisable to share these only in password-protected online spaces; whereas if students plan on sharing their work more widely, it may be appropriate to encourage them to disguise their identities (for example through the use of animated characters in place of photos or videos of themselves).

For useful educational ideas and resources, including examples of digital stories, see Helen Barrett’s Digital Storytelling, Langwitches’ Digital Storytelling (see the sketch below), the University of Houston’s Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling, and Wes Fryer’s Show What You Know with Media (see the image at the top of this page). For reflections on lessons learned from a cross-cultural digital storytelling project, see Grace Oakley and Mark Pegrum’s Multimodal Stories for Language and Cultural Exchange.

There are three main options for creating digital stories, namely manual digital storytelling, automated digital storytelling, and mobile digital storytelling, as outlined below. Note that combinations of these are also possible, for example when mobile devices are used to take photos or make audio recordings, and to carry out initial editing, before these materials are transferred to a laptop or desktop computer, perhaps edited further, and then integrated into a final format for sharing.

Some tools can be used to create manual digital stories on laptop or desktop computers. Such stories require users to interact with them, for example by clicking through from one section to the next, or opening photos, launching audio files and videos, and so on. However, many digital stories created in this way could potentially be turned into automated digital stories in the form of videos, captured using screencast software. The tools themselves can be easily accessed on the web. Some are free to use; others work on a freemium model where basic functionality is available for free, but users pay for more advanced functionality; and still others are fully paid services. Any videos created from the digital stories can be shared online using videosharing services, or in LMSs or other institutional online spaces. Key tools for creating manual digital stories are shown in the table below.

TOOL TYPE	TOOL EXAMPLES
Comics	Cambridge English Cartoon Maker Comic Life Comic Strip Creator Graphix Comic Builders Pixton Stripcreator Stripgenerator ToonDoo Witty Comics WriteComics
Storybooks	Little Bird Tales  Storybird  StoryJumper
Storyboards	Storyboard That
Timelines	MyHistro Preceden Tiki-Toki TimelineJS Timetoast
Annotated pictures	Annotation Pilot Easy Screen Capture and Annotation Ink2Go iPhotoDraw Pixtick  Skitch  Szoter  VoiceThread
Multimodal posters/images	Canva Genially [web annotation] Glogster Thinglink [web annotation] Web Poster Wizard
Multimodal scrapbooks	Mixbook Smilebox
Flipbooks	1stFlip Flibook Creator FlipBook Creator FlipBook Maker FlipHTML5 FlipPage Maker Flipping Book Flipsnack  Free Flip Book Maker  iGooSoft FlipBook Creator  Kvisoft FlipBook Maker  VeryPDF Flipbook Maker  Xflip

Some tools allow the creation of automated digital stories which, once launched, run by themselves in either audio or, more commonly, video format. As with the manual digital story tools, some are free to use; others work on a freemium model where basic functionality is available for free, but users pay for more advanced functionality; and still others are fully paid services. Any audio or video files created can be shared online using podcasting or  videosharing services, or in LMSs or other institutional online spaces.

TOOL TYPE	TOOL EXAMPLES	AUDIO/VIDEO FORMAT
Podcasts	Audacity GarageBand (Mac)	audio
Slideshows	PowerPoint Prezi	video, usually created after adding a narrative voiceover & saving the file as a video
Videos	iMovie (Mac) Windows Movie Maker (PC) Kizoa	video
Animation	Dflip  Powtoon	video
Machinima	in-built video capture tools in virtual worlds or gaming environments	video

A number of the tools listed above are available in mobile app versions. In addition, there are numerous mobile-only or mobile-first apps which are appropriate for creating digital stories. The apps below can be used either on Android or Apple iOS smart devices, or sometimes on both; you can search for them in the Apple iTunes store or the Google Play store. Some, though not all, are available in free versions.

These kinds of digital storytelling apps make it easy to create template-based digital stories, and they are highly suitable for young or digitally inexperienced learners. Note, however, that users are often restricted to preset templates, and it may be difficult to export and share work: the digital stories created will in some cases only be viewable by others who have the same app running on the same operating system.

ICON	APP TYPE	APP NAME
	Animation	Puppet Pals
	Animation	Sock Puppets
	Animation (TV show featuring real video footage)	TeleStory
	Animation	Toontastic 3D
	Explanation	Explain Everything (Classic Explain Everything) (Explain Everything Interactive Whiteboard)
	Smartboard	SMART Notebook
	Storybook	Book Creator
	Storybook	Creative Book Builder
	Storybook	Little Story Maker
	Storybook	Story Creator

You might also like to check out Common Sense Education’s (2019) Best Apps for Creating Books and Storybooks. More information is available on the Publications on Digital Learning page under ‘digital storytelling’.