At a basic level digital storytelling means using technology to tell stories. You can tell digital stories in many ways, for example: through text on a website or social media tool, through narration and images in a video, or through narration in a podcast.
From “Digital Storytelling” by the Learning Portal
Note: Each project is different, so each one may involve different steps. Just select the steps below that make the most sense for your project.
Read your assignment instructions carefully to make sure that you understand what you need to do for your digital storytelling assignment. Does the assignment require you to tell a story about a topic?
Does the assignment require you to tell your story to a certain audience?
Use concept mapping tools to start thinking about how the story might develop from beginning to end.
Start thinking about assets (e.g. images, music, or content) that you might need to create digital storytelling page. You can use this inventory worksheet to keep track of your assets.
Research the topic for your assignment and make sure to start thinking about proper citation of your research.
Decide on your platforms and approaches. Will you create an audiorecording or podcast? A video? A story map?
Your digital story will most likely have multiple moving parts: video, narration, music, images that come and go, maybe even graphs or hyperlinks to other content.
Therefore, you might want to write your script and storyboard at the same time to make sure that the parts flow together from the beginning of the story to the end. Try out some of these storyboarding tools.
Try to imagine what the audience will see as they listen to your narration.
Think about your audience and vocabulary and pace of narration that will resonate with them.
If you choose to reuse content created by others, make yourself aware of Creative Commons licenses and attribute the creators through proper citation. You can keep track of the necessary information in your inventory list.
Consult University of Toronto Libraries to see if you can borrow equipment or use designated recording space from a U of T library near you.
Learn how to use software for creating audio and video before you jump in.
When you record audio, your voice and the pace of your narration are key to your digital story, so record your audio first. Do multiple practice recordings. Don’t just try to get your narration right the first time. When you do your practice recordings, try to recreate what the video component or images might look like.
When you record video, keep in mind that in addition to your video you may have images, graphs, clickable hyperlinks and other visual aspects that will overlay the main video recording.
If you have miscalculated the timing of the narration with any visual components, it is possible to edit either using various software and make sure that they are in sync.
Using your chosen platform, upload and layout/arrange your materials, accordingly, ensuring that you provide citations and credit for all outside materials used. Make sure that you have a back-up of written work and that you are never writing directly into the platform, rather, copying and pasting instead. Make sure to save your work frequently. This goes for podcasting, story mapping, video editing, and most other forms of digital storytelling.
Make sure that your digital story is captioned and consider accessibility for your audience.
Think about copyright and licensing for your work, along with social media and meta-data to get your work out there to a larger audience.