Tonight I decided that I would like to check out some examples of digital story telling. I found quite a few interesting videos on you tube. One used animation and photos to tell a story about baseball. Others like Franz Josef’s simply used pictures and a few effects. I thought Franz’s digital story about a glacier was very well done. It has a really nice script, and the pictures are interesting and dynamic. He also used complete blackout’s a couple times throughout his presentation to regain the viewers attention. This is one of the techniques Dean mentioned in class. I can definitly tell the difference between a digital story that was planned out and one that was not. The digital stories that are not pre-planned tend to be confusing and unorganized. The preplanned digital stories tend to have a clearer focus throughout. Any way you should check out Franz’s video, I have posted it down below. Do you think this video is a good example of digital story telling?
I was reading Brianne Pister’s blog and I came across this site called Voki. It is a really neat site where you can create a character and customize their appearance and surroundings. Then you can add voice to your character either by typing in words and having a range of computer voices with different accents and languages read them or use your microphone or upload a file. I have been playing around with the typing feature and different characters voices. What’s neat about this program is that it is free and once you are finished customizing your characters and what they are going to say you can publish it online. Then other people like your friends can watch it. I think this would be a neat addition for a student to have if they had to create their own website. It not only keeps their identity private ,but it allows them to be creative and express themselves in a unique way. There are also a lot of political characters you can choose from. I know I had fun playing around with this program and I urge you to try it out! This you tube video is about George Bush and the creator decided to mix news clips of the real George Bush with a Voki Bush to make a debate. It’s not a great video ,but it gives you an idea of how you could creatively use voki in your classroom.
