As a writer, what appeals to you about writing across modes and media (in digital storytelling)? Or, what do you find particularly challenging about the task at hand?
The most challenging part for me will be narrowing down what I want to talk about to a reasonable amount of time. I love the idea of using visuals to help move the story forward instead of just writing words all the time. Plus, it saves me the time of having to describe every family member that I want to talk about. It will also be a challenge for me to sort through pictures and videos to put them where, when, and how I want them to look.
Callie, I agree that narrowing down a story topic will be challenging for me as well. It can be hard to find a passionate writing topic when we are given so much freedom. I think the storyboarding we will work on in Tuesday's class will help in our writing process.
Hi, Callie. I find just about everything a challenge here. I had so much more to respond to your post, but when I clicked on publish, I was requested to login and then my nice, long post vanished. So much for technology! This has become more a culture shock to me than my time at the University of Vienna in the '90's.
I completely agree with you, Callie. I think it is going to be very difficult to take our typical narrative format and have to represent all of our beautiful words into a few pictures and videos (slightly dramatic, I know). I can definitely relate to your "sorting through pictures" issue. I am part of a photo-obsessed family, especially my teenage sisters, and finding specific pictures to perfectly represent what I am trying to get across is going to be the most difficult aspect of this project.
I think the biggest challenge for me will finding what visuals I want to use with my stories. I am a visual learner but not a visual creator (if that make sense). I need pictures and diagrams to understand some concepts, but I am not the teacher that has visual displays all around the room. I love to help my students create visual, but it can be hard for me to do alone. I think I will also struggle with picking the story that I want to write or present in this project. I have so many great stories to tell, but I am not sure which story will fit with photography. I can always do one about my dogs because they are camera hogs. I may do one with teaching...we shall see.
I DEFINITELY know what you mean about not being a visual creator. Even though I consider myself creative, I'm not very good at creating visuals that will (hopefully) compliment my potential story as well as the other elements within this project such as the auditory features. I am, also, not very patient when it comes to digital editing tools such as Movie Maker or Photoshop, so this will take some time for me. I can usually visualize what I want my finished product to look like but can't find the tools to make it happen, so this will take some patience as well because technology can be frustrating when it won't do exactly what you want it to do in the most user-friendly format!
The biggest challenge for me will be matching images and videos to my thought process. I am not a very visual person. I could write a ten page memoir and only find three images that I think would be effective. It's not that I don't know what I want the picture to be, it's about whether those images exist. I'm not artist so my visuals are limited to stock photos and personal pictures. I'm also self conscious about hearing my voice on camera, which I've somewhat conquered thanks to Monday class.
Lisa, I agree that finding the perfect pictures to describe our stories can seem like a daunting task. Although I am a novice digital story creator, I would like to think that less is more. I think visuals are a large factor of digital stories, but the focus should be on the story and not on every picture we could find relating to our topic. I, too, do not like hearing my voice on camera or frankly watching myself on camera, but I think it is a helpful step in the growing process of our presentation.
I love the idea of having a new medium to expand my conceptualization and capacity as a writer. I never know behind which door a clever little nook is hiding in which to pen something that may have otherwise gone uninspired. The challenge with this is to sync the non writing portions of technology (music/sound/narrative voice/images/etc...) with the story itself. This must be done in a way that the presentation enhances the work rather than detracting from it. It will be interesting to see how this all comes together.
I think that syncing our stories with the non-writing portions will provide a challenge for us and for our future students. I, once, had to turn a narrative (that I loved) into a visual poem. It was so PAINFUL to delete words and figure out how the parts I left would fit in with the visual elements. At one point during the project, I had an entire slide filled with words in 8-point font. Needless to say, my teacher told me I needed to do more editing. I, eventually, found my way, and realized which parts of the story were the most essential or the most powerful and how to pair them with visuals that made them even stronger. I did this activity six years ago, though, so it will be interesting to do this again and to add auditory elements as well. Overall, I think this type of activity is one that can help students weave multiple mediums together and teach them how to utilize these mediums to make an impact in regard to the story they wish to portray. It's definitely a task that is easier said than done.
I find comfort in words, especially written language. I can easily write a few pages on my thoughts, in fact I find myself a bit 'wordy' at times. I think that this reliance solely on words will present challenges within digital storytelling, though. The auditory element is one I see myself struggling with because I think it takes a special skill (a skill I do not possess) to portray emotions through ones voice if this is the audio I choose to use. I am excited to play around with the visual element, though. In my studies, I've taken a special interest on how visuals are used in the classroom. Sometimes, 'aesthetics' can become a side note, but this project will require images that are meaningful and purposeful to the story at hand.
Megan, I understand your concern for abandoning, or at least lessening, the amount of words that appear in a story project. It is where us englishy people are most comfortable. Despite our discomfort with stepping into the digital storybook, we can see that it provides a very productive space for our visual learners and students who simply don't like writing. They may see digital storytelling as an opportunity to express something deep within them that words never touch.
As a writer, I love the idea of collaboration and integration within my digital writing. To be able to receive recognition of a piece of writing that I have contributed to the cyber space world, even if it is just a favorited tweet, boosts my self confidence as a person and a writer. Through digital writing, my words and ideas are not limited to the text on my screen. I am now able to incorporate pictures, videos, and auditory comments into my writing pieces. My storytelling abilities are taken to a new level of intimacy and expression.The issue that concerns me as a digital writer and as a teacher, is where is the line where integration becomes too much? Is there such a thing as adding too many digital elements or aids? I worry that digital writers can become so transfixed on adding a hyperlinks or imbedded videos that there is a potential for the focus on the original story to be taken away.
I find very little appealing about writing across modes and media. I have no interest in the approach, as I find the greatest oxymorn to date to be the term "personal computer." What's personal about THAT? Also, what about kids from improverished households? How are they supposed to have access to these forms of "technology?" I, indeed, am not sanguine about sharing my intimate life moments with strangers. Therefore, I find this medium to be very problematic. Yes, I get it that kids today use this stuff to communicate and what not. Fine. I am not opposed to their doing such. However, I see my calling in English as one to inspire the students to love the best in literature and emulate the best works in their own writing (while finding their own "voice" at the same time). When it comes to making my own storytelling video, that will be a problem. My family didn't have the luxury of owning home video cameras since we were more concerned with just getting food on the table, shoes on our feet, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads. Also, I have few photographs of family memories, and even those are difficult to obtain since members of the family are scattered here and there in the country and often hard to reach. Therefore, shouldn't something like this approach be within the realm of the theater teacher or technology education expert?
find very little appealing about writing across modes and media. I have no interest in the approach, as I find the greatest oxymorn to date to be the term "personal computer." What's personal about THAT? Also, what about kids from improverished households? How are they supposed to have access to these forms of "technology?" I, indeed, am not sanguine about sharing my intimate life moments with strangers. Therefore, I find this medium to be very problematic. Yes, I get it that kids today use this stuff to communicate and what not. Fine. I am not opposed to their doing such. However, I see my calling in English as one to inspire the students to love the best in literature and emulate the best works in their own writing (while finding their own "voice" at the same time). When it comes to making my own storytelling video, that will be a problem. My family didn't have the luxury of owning home video cameras since we were more concerned with just getting food on the table, shoes on our feet, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads. Also, I have few photographs of family memories, and even those are difficult to obtain since members of the family are scattered here and there in the country and often hard to reach. Therefore, shouldn't something like this approach be within the realm of the theater teacher or technology education expert?
My biggest struggle will be actually doing this project in the new format. As I said in my previous post, I am a wordy writer. It is very difficult for me to be concise because I love words and adding details (probably too much detail). Because I love words, I think it will be difficult for me to use videos and pictures to represent my story while also having a limited space to do so.
I love tinkering with technology, so I’m excited to play around with the programs and tools involved in digital storytelling. That being said, because I’ve never done anything like this before, I’m also a little nervous about the time it’s going to take for me to become somewhat familiar with these programs/tools. I’m also afraid that I’m not going to be able to fit my story into a 2-minute time span. As a writer, I tend to use lengthy sentences and flowery descriptions. I’ve realized that I’m going to have to restrain myself from being too wordy in my digital story.
I feel pretty excited to try out this digital storytelling assignment. The only thing I think I may struggle with is some of the technology that involves the best product aesthetically. I want to avoid cheesy transitions, etc. I also think that the variety of choice will be difficult for me: should I create a video? A blog? Something entirely different? I am also worried about presenting a final product: will my voice be annoying? Overall, though, challenges always come with a new form, so I'm eager to try it out.
Personally, I've never used any type of digital medium in my stories so it would take a lot of brainstorming. The closest I've been to digital story telling was a video I made about Rosie the Riveter for a class in college. The most difficult aspect of it was hearing my voice in the voiceover. One thing I've realize I do a lot in my writing is describe. I believe that a good story is descriptive but I tend to spend more time describing than I should. It slows down the story and can lose the audience's attention. With a digital medium, I think I could spend more time developing the story rather than the description.
To start off with challenges, I've always been the one to defer to someone else's knowledge when it comes to using video editing programs. I've tried to mess around on iMovie before and I've made no progress. So when considering this project, I'm looking forward to the possibility of mastering these programs, but I'm also not looking forward to the process of navigating my way through. I foresee a lot of frustration. I also agree with Liz and Katie's concerns of being concise. It's difficult to imagine telling an entire story on a 3x5 notecard, but I'm also excited about the challenge and looking forward to seeing what I can come up with.
I like the amount of creativity available. Words are words are words and there isn't a whole lot you can do with them besides join them together. But with multimedia presentations you can add pictures, music, narrative, etc, and you add a massive amount of variables in besides words on a page. You can use music to inspire a mood, or inflection to get emphasis across where italics or bolding words simply wouldn't have the same impact. What is most challenging to me here is the competition with myself: I always strive to be creative as possible, and when you only have words to use, that's not so hard. But with the internet at hand there is a slew of new possibilities that are virtually (pun intended) endless, so even though this may be a great picture or a great musical piece to add, there's always another, better piece to use.
The most challenging part about writing across modes in media is simply knowing which mode is best suited to improve a piece of writing. For instance, google docs are great for working on group projects and allowing others to see your writing and provide feedback on it, but how would a google doc, or another technological mode, further a piece of writing. I just need to explore writing modes to understand which ones are best suited for poetry, narrative, etc. Obviously the collaborative aspects of writing across modes and media make me really excited. It's amazing that students and teachers can share their own writing across vast media. As opposed to marking up a physical copy of writing, media affords us the space to suggest changes without invading the writer's space. This is an amazing advantage of technology, especially for middle school and young high school writers. Writing is scary at times and makes the writer vulnerable, so allowing the writer to keep the space his/her own is really important to help the student write more and further develop his/her voice.
I think the digital story telling allows for relative ease of juxtaposition, which I always find interesting in stories. The space where two seemingly incongruous concepts bump together or even coexist fascinates me and provides wonderful ironical opportunities. Also, the allowance of visuals could help me, because I see my descriptive writing as a bit lacking in clarity sometimes since I focus so much on analytical writing for most of my personal endeavors. I'm worried that I might rely on that allowance as too much of a crutch however and shortchange the scripting and writing elements of the piece. It also might be hard for me to convey the way that pictures I have affect me. I don't have a lot of pictures of people, but mostly of places I've gone with people. The pictures serve as reminders of contexts and people and times in my life that sometimes have little to do with the pictures themselves. They sometimes just serve as markers for the date and place, and I'd be worried that the rest of the context might be tough for me to fully verbalize around the pictures.
One unfortunate challenge I was thinking about as I was watching these is that I don't possibly know how to even begin deciphering my mother's 87 boxes of tapes, videos, and pictures from my childhood and family. It would literally take me years to look through everything to even begin to find stuff to start cutting down and editing into a digital story.
The thing that appeals to me most about the digital storytelling is the opportunity to engage modern, digital audiences. So often, when looking up how to do something, I know that people would rather look at a digital, moving picture to learn rather than read a lengthy list.
The most challenging part for me will be narrowing down what I want to talk about to a reasonable amount of time. I love the idea of using visuals to help move the story forward instead of just writing words all the time. Plus, it saves me the time of having to describe every family member that I want to talk about. It will also be a challenge for me to sort through pictures and videos to put them where, when, and how I want them to look.
ReplyDeleteCallie, I agree that narrowing down a story topic will be challenging for me as well. It can be hard to find a passionate writing topic when we are given so much freedom. I think the storyboarding we will work on in Tuesday's class will help in our writing process.
DeleteHi, Callie.
DeleteI find just about everything a challenge here. I had so much more to respond to your post, but when I clicked on publish, I was requested to login and then my nice, long post vanished. So much for technology! This has become more a culture shock to me than my time at the University of Vienna in the '90's.
I completely agree with you, Callie. I think it is going to be very difficult to take our typical narrative format and have to represent all of our beautiful words into a few pictures and videos (slightly dramatic, I know). I can definitely relate to your "sorting through pictures" issue. I am part of a photo-obsessed family, especially my teenage sisters, and finding specific pictures to perfectly represent what I am trying to get across is going to be the most difficult aspect of this project.
DeleteI think the biggest challenge for me will finding what visuals I want to use with my stories. I am a visual learner but not a visual creator (if that make sense). I need pictures and diagrams to understand some concepts, but I am not the teacher that has visual displays all around the room. I love to help my students create visual, but it can be hard for me to do alone. I think I will also struggle with picking the story that I want to write or present in this project. I have so many great stories to tell, but I am not sure which story will fit with photography. I can always do one about my dogs because they are camera hogs. I may do one with teaching...we shall see.
ReplyDeleteI DEFINITELY know what you mean about not being a visual creator. Even though I consider myself creative, I'm not very good at creating visuals that will (hopefully) compliment my potential story as well as the other elements within this project such as the auditory features. I am, also, not very patient when it comes to digital editing tools such as Movie Maker or Photoshop, so this will take some time for me. I can usually visualize what I want my finished product to look like but can't find the tools to make it happen, so this will take some patience as well because technology can be frustrating when it won't do exactly what you want it to do in the most user-friendly format!
DeleteThe biggest challenge for me will be matching images and videos to my thought process. I am not a very visual person. I could write a ten page memoir and only find three images that I think would be effective. It's not that I don't know what I want the picture to be, it's about whether those images exist. I'm not artist so my visuals are limited to stock photos and personal pictures. I'm also self conscious about hearing my voice on camera, which I've somewhat conquered thanks to Monday class.
ReplyDeleteLisa, I agree that finding the perfect pictures to describe our stories can seem like a daunting task. Although I am a novice digital story creator, I would like to think that less is more. I think visuals are a large factor of digital stories, but the focus should be on the story and not on every picture we could find relating to our topic. I, too, do not like hearing my voice on camera or frankly watching myself on camera, but I think it is a helpful step in the growing process of our presentation.
DeleteI love the idea of having a new medium to expand my conceptualization and capacity as a writer. I never know behind which door a clever little nook is hiding in which to pen something that may have otherwise gone uninspired. The challenge with this is to sync the non writing portions of technology (music/sound/narrative voice/images/etc...) with the story itself. This must be done in a way that the presentation enhances the work rather than detracting from it. It will be interesting to see how this all comes together.
ReplyDeleteI think that syncing our stories with the non-writing portions will provide a challenge for us and for our future students. I, once, had to turn a narrative (that I loved) into a visual poem. It was so PAINFUL to delete words and figure out how the parts I left would fit in with the visual elements. At one point during the project, I had an entire slide filled with words in 8-point font. Needless to say, my teacher told me I needed to do more editing. I, eventually, found my way, and realized which parts of the story were the most essential or the most powerful and how to pair them with visuals that made them even stronger. I did this activity six years ago, though, so it will be interesting to do this again and to add auditory elements as well. Overall, I think this type of activity is one that can help students weave multiple mediums together and teach them how to utilize these mediums to make an impact in regard to the story they wish to portray. It's definitely a task that is easier said than done.
DeleteI find comfort in words, especially written language. I can easily write a few pages on my thoughts, in fact I find myself a bit 'wordy' at times. I think that this reliance solely on words will present challenges within digital storytelling, though. The auditory element is one I see myself struggling with because I think it takes a special skill (a skill I do not possess) to portray emotions through ones voice if this is the audio I choose to use. I am excited to play around with the visual element, though. In my studies, I've taken a special interest on how visuals are used in the classroom. Sometimes, 'aesthetics' can become a side note, but this project will require images that are meaningful and purposeful to the story at hand.
ReplyDeleteMegan, I understand your concern for abandoning, or at least lessening, the amount of words that appear in a story project. It is where us englishy people are most comfortable. Despite our discomfort with stepping into the digital storybook, we can see that it provides a very productive space for our visual learners and students who simply don't like writing. They may see digital storytelling as an opportunity to express something deep within them that words never touch.
DeleteAs a writer, I love the idea of collaboration and integration within my digital writing. To be able to receive recognition of a piece of writing that I have contributed to the cyber space world, even if it is just a favorited tweet, boosts my self confidence as a person and a writer. Through digital writing, my words and ideas are not limited to the text on my screen. I am now able to incorporate pictures, videos, and auditory comments into my writing pieces. My storytelling abilities are taken to a new level of intimacy and expression.The issue that concerns me as a digital writer and as a teacher, is where is the line where integration becomes too much? Is there such a thing as adding too many digital elements or aids? I worry that digital writers can become so transfixed on adding a hyperlinks or imbedded videos that there is a potential for the focus on the original story to be taken away.
ReplyDeleteI find very little appealing about writing across modes and media. I have no interest in the approach, as I find the greatest oxymorn to date to be the term "personal computer." What's personal about THAT? Also, what about kids from improverished households? How are they supposed to have access to these forms of "technology?" I, indeed, am not sanguine about sharing my intimate life moments with strangers. Therefore, I find this medium to be very problematic. Yes, I get it that kids today use this stuff to communicate and what not. Fine. I am not opposed to their doing such. However, I see my calling in English as one to inspire the students to love the best in literature and emulate the best works in their own writing (while finding their own "voice" at the same time). When it comes to making my own storytelling video, that will be a problem. My family didn't have the luxury of owning home video cameras since we were more concerned with just getting food on the table, shoes on our feet, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads. Also, I have few photographs of family memories, and even those are difficult to obtain since members of the family are scattered here and there in the country and often hard to reach. Therefore, shouldn't something like this approach be within the realm of the theater teacher or technology education expert?
ReplyDeletefind very little appealing about writing across modes and media. I have no interest in the approach, as I find the greatest oxymorn to date to be the term "personal computer." What's personal about THAT? Also, what about kids from improverished households? How are they supposed to have access to these forms of "technology?" I, indeed, am not sanguine about sharing my intimate life moments with strangers. Therefore, I find this medium to be very problematic. Yes, I get it that kids today use this stuff to communicate and what not. Fine. I am not opposed to their doing such. However, I see my calling in English as one to inspire the students to love the best in literature and emulate the best works in their own writing (while finding their own "voice" at the same time). When it comes to making my own storytelling video, that will be a problem. My family didn't have the luxury of owning home video cameras since we were more concerned with just getting food on the table, shoes on our feet, clothes on our backs, and a roof over our heads. Also, I have few photographs of family memories, and even those are difficult to obtain since members of the family are scattered here and there in the country and often hard to reach. Therefore, shouldn't something like this approach be within the realm of the theater teacher or technology education expert?
ReplyDeleteMy biggest struggle will be actually doing this project in the new format. As I said in my previous post, I am a wordy writer. It is very difficult for me to be concise because I love words and adding details (probably too much detail). Because I love words, I think it will be difficult for me to use videos and pictures to represent my story while also having a limited space to do so.
ReplyDeleteI love tinkering with technology, so I’m excited to play around with the programs and tools involved in digital storytelling. That being said, because I’ve never done anything like this before, I’m also a little nervous about the time it’s going to take for me to become somewhat familiar with these programs/tools. I’m also afraid that I’m not going to be able to fit my story into a 2-minute time span. As a writer, I tend to use lengthy sentences and flowery descriptions. I’ve realized that I’m going to have to restrain myself from being too wordy in my digital story.
ReplyDeleteI feel pretty excited to try out this digital storytelling assignment. The only thing I think I may struggle with is some of the technology that involves the best product aesthetically. I want to avoid cheesy transitions, etc. I also think that the variety of choice will be difficult for me: should I create a video? A blog? Something entirely different? I am also worried about presenting a final product: will my voice be annoying? Overall, though, challenges always come with a new form, so I'm eager to try it out.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I've never used any type of digital medium in my stories so it would take a lot of brainstorming. The closest I've been to digital story telling was a video I made about Rosie the Riveter for a class in college. The most difficult aspect of it was hearing my voice in the voiceover. One thing I've realize I do a lot in my writing is describe. I believe that a good story is descriptive but I tend to spend more time describing than I should. It slows down the story and can lose the audience's attention. With a digital medium, I think I could spend more time developing the story rather than the description.
ReplyDeleteTo start off with challenges, I've always been the one to defer to someone else's knowledge when it comes to using video editing programs. I've tried to mess around on iMovie before and I've made no progress. So when considering this project, I'm looking forward to the possibility of mastering these programs, but I'm also not looking forward to the process of navigating my way through. I foresee a lot of frustration. I also agree with Liz and Katie's concerns of being concise. It's difficult to imagine telling an entire story on a 3x5 notecard, but I'm also excited about the challenge and looking forward to seeing what I can come up with.
ReplyDeleteI like the amount of creativity available. Words are words are words and there isn't a whole lot you can do with them besides join them together. But with multimedia presentations you can add pictures, music, narrative, etc, and you add a massive amount of variables in besides words on a page. You can use music to inspire a mood, or inflection to get emphasis across where italics or bolding words simply wouldn't have the same impact. What is most challenging to me here is the competition with myself: I always strive to be creative as possible, and when you only have words to use, that's not so hard. But with the internet at hand there is a slew of new possibilities that are virtually (pun intended) endless, so even though this may be a great picture or a great musical piece to add, there's always another, better piece to use.
ReplyDeleteThe most challenging part about writing across modes in media is simply knowing which mode is best suited to improve a piece of writing. For instance, google docs are great for working on group projects and allowing others to see your writing and provide feedback on it, but how would a google doc, or another technological mode, further a piece of writing. I just need to explore writing modes to understand which ones are best suited for poetry, narrative, etc.
ReplyDeleteObviously the collaborative aspects of writing across modes and media make me really excited. It's amazing that students and teachers can share their own writing across vast media. As opposed to marking up a physical copy of writing, media affords us the space to suggest changes without invading the writer's space. This is an amazing advantage of technology, especially for middle school and young high school writers. Writing is scary at times and makes the writer vulnerable, so allowing the writer to keep the space his/her own is really important to help the student write more and further develop his/her voice.
I think the digital story telling allows for relative ease of juxtaposition, which I always find interesting in stories. The space where two seemingly incongruous concepts bump together or even coexist fascinates me and provides wonderful ironical opportunities. Also, the allowance of visuals could help me, because I see my descriptive writing as a bit lacking in clarity sometimes since I focus so much on analytical writing for most of my personal endeavors.
ReplyDeleteI'm worried that I might rely on that allowance as too much of a crutch however and shortchange the scripting and writing elements of the piece. It also might be hard for me to convey the way that pictures I have affect me. I don't have a lot of pictures of people, but mostly of places I've gone with people. The pictures serve as reminders of contexts and people and times in my life that sometimes have little to do with the pictures themselves. They sometimes just serve as markers for the date and place, and I'd be worried that the rest of the context might be tough for me to fully verbalize around the pictures.
One unfortunate challenge I was thinking about as I was watching these is that I don't possibly know how to even begin deciphering my mother's 87 boxes of tapes, videos, and pictures from my childhood and family. It would literally take me years to look through everything to even begin to find stuff to start cutting down and editing into a digital story.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that appeals to me most about the digital storytelling is the opportunity to engage modern, digital audiences. So often, when looking up how to do something, I know that people would rather look at a digital, moving picture to learn rather than read a lengthy list.