A few tips for faculty who'd like to offer digital storytelling as an option for student projects. For more resources, see: http://digitalwriting101.net/teaching

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Tips for Teaching
Digital Storytelling Projects
Amy Goodloe
Program for Writing & Rhetoric
University of Colorado, Boulder

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Teach the genre, not the technology
 Focus on helping students:
 Understand how digital storytelling functions as a genre
 Develop and organize their ideas effectively
 Recognize and apply composing strategies appropriate to an
audiovisual medium
 Let someone else teach the technology. Doing so:
 Helps students have clear expectations about your role and your
area of expertise
 Avoids the problem of blaming the instructor for the students’ own
issues with technology
 Encourages students to take ownership of their own tech learning

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Provide plenty of tech resources
 Invite academic technology experts to come to class to lead
workshops and/or serve as mentors for students
 Share links to step-by-step instructions and screencasts that will
help students with specific aspects of the composing process
 http://digitalwriting101.net
 Remind students how to make effective use of Google searches to
find help
 Encourage tech-savvy students in the class to help others
 Organize workshop groups based on level of skill
 Devote some class time to letting students help each other
 Provide an out-of-class forum for students to use

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Clarify your expectations
 Show a range of sample projects
 Explain where each falls on the evaluation criteria
 Connect to learning goals
 Emphasize the use of narrative to communicate
 Goal is to expand range of options available for
communication…
 … not to produce a slick short film for a film studies class
 A photo slideshow with a killer soundtrack won’t cut it

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Raise the stakes
 Use peer pressure to your advantage by arranging for every
student’s project to be visible to the class (or a larger audience)
 Allot time for in-class showings
 Ask students to post projects on a class blog or wiki
 If your class time is limited, ask students to vote on their
favorites and show the top 3 in class

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Give students plenty of time
Week 1: Week 3:
 Find and discuss lots of  Revise story boards
samples  Prepare audio recordings
 Brainstorm story ideas (voiceover, music, sound
 Introduce strategies for effects)
composing in words, sounds,
and images Week 4:
 Produce a rough cut for
Week 2: workshop
 Develop and workshop story
boards Week 5:
 Continue exploring  Revise and polish
composing strategies  Hold a showing on final day

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Be patient!
 Many of today’s college students grew up learning how to write,
but this may be the first time they’ve been asked to compose a
multimodal message
 They’ve likely had poor instruction in technology
 Perhaps due to the faulty assumption that they’re “digital natives”
 So keep your expectations realistic, especially for students who
struggle to use computers
 Frequently remind students of the value of what they’re learning, to
help them focus on the end goal and not their technology hassles

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Do it yourself first
 I highly recommend that instructors who want to ask students
to produce digital storytelling projects go through the process of
making one themselves first, ideally through a workshop.
 Until you’re confronted with the challenge of telling a brief
narrative in a multimodal format yourself, you won’t be as well
prepared to help students with the kinds of rhetorical and
composition strategies available to them.
 You’ll also develop much more realistic expectations for what is
and isn’t possible in this medium!