Let me be honest. This week was rough. I had way too much due for my other classes between Tuesday and Thursday on top of the five or six meetings I went to.
After last semester, writing my 30-40 page history thesis on top of all my other papers and work seemed impossible. But I got through it. I just have to reorganize and re-prioritize this semester. It’s only the end of the third week of school! Come on
So what is Digital Storytelling?
This week was all about getting to know what digital storytelling really means.
What does it mean?
I’ve been part of so many communities online and for so long I don’t really think you can define it well anymore. Is a gif a digital story? Can a gif set be a digital story? How about a photoshopped photo? Or something like this?
Is that digital storytelling? What about a video?
None of us can define it fully because it is constantly changing.
Nevertheless, I tried my best in this post here.
Kurt Vonnegut and the Shapes of Stories
This week, I also reviewed this video of story shapes by Kurt Vonnegut. I wrote a blog post about it, which you can read here, but I am going to include a little bit of my thoughts on it now.
Since it could possibly have spoilers, though, for Wreck-it Ralph, I’m putting it behind a “read more.”
This is my story shape for Wreck-it Ralph.
You can read more about why it’s this shape in the blog post.
But for now, I want to talk about why this “story shape” theory or system is useful. While you can’t really tell from this graph that I created, this infograph by Maya Eilam really shows how you can almost categorize stories into basic arcs.
For new creators of digital stories, seeing stories charted on these axes really helps us understand what kinds of arcs we can include and what we should be working towards.
Maybe we won’t have the entire story from “B” to “E” (beginning to end) in our creations, but we can include little pieces between “B” and “E.”
A Good Example of Digital Storytelling
This video tells the story of the Game of Thrones series. If you have not seen the show but want to, this video has MAJOR SPOILERS. When I say MAJOR… I mean HUUUUGE.
Also, lots of gore and blood and stuff.
As I included in the blog post on digital storytelling, I feel that this video really captures the show. We see the multiple story arcs and the main theme of the show: a game for power (the throne). The song also expresses the “between heaven and hell” aspect of the series. There is so much death in the show/book series that the song lyrics represent how death is just hanging over all of the characters as “Gods and his priests and his kings” wait for them.
You can tell I have a passion for Game of Thrones…
Best of Series
I also took a look at some digital storytelling examples from previous semesters of DS106.
I looked at the in[SPIRE] website and the “best works.”
You can read more of that here.
When I first got to these sites, I was overwhelmed. I didn’t know what to pick. I ended up going with videos because videos mean stories to me. But the more I think about it and the more I review the “best works”, the more I realize that a video isn’t the only way to tell a story.
While the two stories I picked were my favorite of what I found, by reviewing all of these stories, I began to understand that digital storytelling doesn’t have to be an entire story. I could have one aspect of that story. Maybe just a character’s personality or a key scene in a movie–those can be storytelling, too.
Routine Creativity
I was able to do four daily creates this week. I wrote about each of them in this blog post here.
I really love doing daily creates. I wish I could commit to doing each one, but sometimes I just don’t feel creative in the way they want me to be. While today’s, for example, asks for a drawing of a boring picture on an interesting surface–which would normally be fun–I just can’t think of anything. On days when I have distractions, like the Super Bowl today, my creativity goes straight out the window.
Having a Go at a Story in Photos
I really pushed my creativity boundary here. I’m not a creative writer. I write facts. I write with sources. So writing this story here about an event with two little boys was incredibly hard. I noticed as I was picking photos, I kept going for a dark story, too.
Maybe the boy dies.
Maybe he has to go to the hospital.
Maybe he gets so sick he can’t leave his house for days.
I think I should stop watching all those dark TV shows.
Comment Comrades
This week we started working within our comment groups.
At first, I thought it would be like this
But when I had to start stalking social networks to find blogs, it really started to feel like this
Richard Wyrough’s blog post on story shapes really made me think about how I viewed stories. I’m more of an agreeable person and can see multiple viewpoints at one time. But it’s refreshing to see someone disagree with something a lot of people agree on!
On Tim E.’s blog, his social network widget is definitely something I need to add to my blog. I hadn’t even thought of giving my blog visitors access to my social networks. As a future teacher, I try to keep my personal networks out of such a public site like this one, but I think adding my flickr, soundcloud, and youtube sites would be helpful for people trying to keep up with my posts.
Nancy’s blog was inspiring in a different way. She has a quilt theme and then uses a lot of “seamstress” and “sewing” things in her posts. I really like how she and other DS106ers have created a persona almost on their site. I think it enhances the user’s experience. For me, it’s a little bit harder not to have stream-of-consciousness on blog posts sometimes.
We can’t get into contact with our last member of our group, so for now it’s just us four.
I think I’m a bit ahead of some of my group. This is probably because I run a tumblr and have been on other blog/forum sites since I got my first computer. I also write a little bit differently. I like to describe in detail what I’m thinking, why I’m thinking that way, how I did something–but it’s another thing I love to do because I love to read when people write those things!
Either way being a little ahead also means I can help them customize and optimize their blogs for their visitors. I love working on websites, so I am SO down.
Feedback
I didn’t really get much constructive feedback this week, but I suspect that will change once we really start getting into our own slice of digital storytelling. We each have a niche, so it’ll be interesting to see how we compare in methods, ideas, etc.
Richard alerted me this week, though, that maybe I’m having some issues with my links and with my commenting system. I am in a conversation with him to try and figure out where exactly those problems are so that I may fix them ASAP.
I mostly got compliments on the blog theme (which should go to Caroline Moore!) and on my gifs. I always love when people appreciate my work, so it was nice to hear that my hard work went over well.
I really hope next week we get more into the constructive feedback, though. I feel like all us were still kind of testing the waters with the “honeymoon phase” of being in a comment group, and we all want the lovey-dovey stuff right now.
PHEW! The hardest week of my semester is over.
I am a little weary of not having a clear definition of digital storytelling. We all have our own interpretations, but in my mind, there’s either a right definition or a wrong one–and I don’t want to be working with the wrong one this whole semester!
I am trying to disconnect myself from my school-razed brain for this class, though. I’m trying to remind myself that this is about what I think is storytelling.
I hope that’s what we’re supposed to be doing.
This week, too, I am hoping to start writing more on this blog about my experiences throughout the week and not just when my tasks for DS106 tell me to.
Maybe I’ll start to use Reddit for that, though? I want to post digital storytelling ideas that I find and what I think about them. That fits I think with the subreddit Nancy came up with.
Annnnd, again. I am working better with my time this week. WHATEVER IT TAKES.
I want to be successful in this course. I want to learn something. I want to be better for taking this class. I can’t do those things, though, if I’m waiting until the weekend to do these things.
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