Digital stories are continuing the ancient tradition of oral storytelling. Read thru and find out how to make a digital story. Please also visit www.switopresentations.com for more advices

1. Making a Digital Story
By Mary Gracey Galenzoga
Digital stories are continuing the ancient tradition of oral storytelling. But adding music, images,
graphics and sound effects to the stories and making it available to anyone online. The good
thing about digital storytelling is that it can reach a broad number of children all over the world,
and depending on the stories, they can be able to influence different age groups as well.
Telling a digital story need some preparation and planning. Unlike the traditional oral story
telling where the orator only need his voice and a little background music in getting the
attention of the children, nowadays there is a need for something more exciting in telling your
stories. Digital story telling adds visual and audio stimulation in relaying a literary artwork. This
dramatically increases the length of time a child will have his attention on the story. And to do it
properly this few step are suggested;
Define, Collect and Decide
The first part of making a digital story is by defining the topic of the story. You may start
collecting related materials that you can use in your digital stories like pictures, images, audio
sound bites, background music and even short clips. If you are a descent artist, then try to draw
the pictures of the story yourself, the good thing when you do this is you can get what pictures
you would want to use in your story. Sound effects and background music can be easily found in
the internet. Try to collect a lot of this as well - you don’t know when you might need them.
Then decide the purpose of your story, will it inform, give a lesson or try to convince the
audience - that will be all up to you.
Select, Import and Create
The next stage in making the digital story will be selecting which of the materials you will use or
discard. You can use a movie maker or other programs that you can use to make the digital story.
You can then add the pictures with the audio sound and music.
Decide, Write and Finalize
After deciding what is the point of view and purpose of the digital story. You can then write a
script for your story that can be used as the narration so that the people will decide what’s right
about your story. Record your voice using a microphone and start reading the script. Incorporate
to the video that you have created for your digital story. Make sure the timing is right, you can
then upload the videos over the internet and the children will be able to see your stories online.
After that, if you can read the feedback of the people about your videos and digital story, you
can consider yourself one of the ancient storytellers of old. For more insights you can go to
www.switopresentations.com to see more expert advices about digital storytelling.