Digital storytelling utilizes modern computing technology to leverage the power of storytelling in new and engaging ways. This may involve using computer-based tools to tell the stories themselves or combining digital elements within the narrative structure in a multimedia presentation. Some see storytelling as a frivolous practice to keep learners entertained, but provide little educational value. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Using stories to teach key lessons and drive educational narratives is nothing new. We have been using storytelling techniques to inform the next generation for millennia. Today, storytelling is just as important as it ever has been, and we have the advantage of major technological advances to help move it forward.
What is Digital Storytelling?
We touched on the fact that digital storytelling is the use of digital media tools to tell stories and teach lessons, but that does not define it entirely. Since digital storytelling exists in electronic formats, it has the ability to utilize a wide range of interactive features that traditional storytelling cannot. Features like interactive maps and social media elements allow learners to dig deeper into the material for a better understanding of the subject matter. This allows digital storytelling to support more avenues for interaction than traditional storytelling methods, which can give it some important advantages.
The Importance of Digital Storytelling in Education
Storytelling in education has stood the test of time for a very good reason. Stories are able to drive engagement and hold a learner’s attention like few other forms of instruction. Through storytelling, we engage with compelling characters that make us want to find a solution to the problems that stand in their way. Those problems, presented in the context of real world obstacles, immediately become things that can and must be solved.
The power of digital storytelling is not confined to the world of classroom education, either. It can be an incredibly useful tool in educating everyone from the general public to specific constituencies. The key concepts and benefits are the same across the board. By utilizing the tools of the day, we can deliver the same benefits associated with traditional storytelling while holding a learner’s attention in a digital world.
Today, most people utilize technology throughout the day, and many rely on it for entertainment and socialization as well. This can be both an advantage and a disadvantage when it comes to learning through this same technology. It is a medium that most people have grown comfortable with, but it can also cause digital overload, which can make holding a learner’s attention more difficult. Using storytelling techniques that are designed to hold a user’s attention and encourage deeper interaction helps leverage the advantage of digital technology, but also mitigate its drawbacks.
Whether dealing with K-12 students or working professionals in workshops or continuing education courses, digital storytelling’s importance in holding a learner’s attention and keeping them engaged delivers a number of important benefits.
Benefits of Digital Storytelling
Storytelling, in general, delivers specific benefits that can be hard to find with most other teaching pedagogies. Humans are drawn to stories and the characters living them, which activates their attention. This leads to greater engagement and more active and creative thinking. Digital storytelling delivers benefits associated with traditional storytelling, but through the modern digital medium.
Increased Engagement
One of the most powerful benefits of using storytelling for instruction is increased engagement. Stories grab a learner’s interest and compel them to care about the outcome. By tying lessons to this inherent attraction to the human condition and its many challenges the learner is inspired to stick with the lesson and creatively invest in overcoming challenges.
Improved Retention
With increased engagement comes improved retention. Students who actively participate in their lessons are far more likely to retain the critical information contained in them. This is because the engaged brain is actively making neurological connections. By creating, strengthening, and reorganizing synaptic connections through engagement, learning outcomes are improved along with the development of new skills and the attainment of new knowledge.
Fostering Creativity
When students take their learning journeys alongside compelling characters, they actively think of ways those characters can solve their dilemmas and complete their character arcs. This not only helps them retain the information being taught, but it also gives them the skills they need to solve problems in their own lives.
Versatility in Learning
With all that students have at their fingertips these days, keeping things fresh and interesting through a variety of different media and platforms helps hold their interest in the next lesson. Digital storytelling encompasses a wide range of these different types of media, including websites, presentations, videos, and interactive livestreams.
Deeper Lesson Dives
By utilizing these different types of media in a single lesson, learners can dive deeper into the information for a more complete understanding. For example, connecting maps to where the story is taking place shows students a richer picture. Linking to videos or websites that fully explain dilemmas or possible solutions within the story provides a better idea of how to overcome obstacles and the importance of doing so. Few other educational approaches deliver so many ways to easily dig deeper into a lesson.
Fosters Community
When learners engage in stories together, they are provided with shared experiences and perspectives that they can share with their classmates. This allows them to discuss lessons with one another in fun and creative ways, further driving home the lessons they have just learned. This supports a greater sense of involvement and belonging and helps students develop important social skills that will help them succeed in the future.
Cultural Preservation
Storytelling has been one of the main ways cultural norms have been passed down through the millennia, and digital storytelling continues that tradition. Stories that involve characters from varied backgrounds allows learners to see themselves represented in media and gives them empathy for others, an important aspect missing from many other pedagogies.
It Allows Students to Assume the Role of Teacher
One of the best ways to learn a subject is to teach it. The process of dissecting a subject and processing it in a way that allows the learner to effectively explain it to another fosters a firm grasp of that subject. By engaging learners in different types of digital storytelling activities, they are able to assume the role of the teacher and produce lessons that they can be proud of.
It Gives them Something to be Proud Of
Digital storytelling projects often act as interactive art pieces that give students something to take pride in. Giving them the tools to create complex projects that tell a compelling story can be incredibly powerful in fostering this level of pride.
Digital Storytelling in Schools
Schools across the globe are adopting digital storytelling strategies to modernize the concept of storytelling in education. There are some specific benefits to be gained through using digital storytelling in educational settings.
Development of Digital Literacy
Since digital storytelling encompasses so many different digital forms, it forces students to understand them in order to use them effectively. These are crucial skills in the modern workforce and learning them early can ensure students have a solid grasp on them before they reach adulthood.
Accommodates Different Learning Styles
Not all students learn in the same way. Each one has unique personality types and life experiences that inform the ways they learn most effectively. Utilizing various types of multimedia in the classroom allows every type of learner to enjoy the same opportunities in their educational journeys.
Read More: Engaging Young Minds: The Power of Story-Based Learning Techniques in Education
Other Uses of Digital Storytelling
Digital storytelling isn’t exclusively a learning tool. It can be used in many capacities as a means to multiple ends. Digital storytelling can be a useful tool in a range of applications and can be used to inform and call to action. Let’s look at a couple of these uses of digital storytelling.
PSAs, Content Sizzles, and Announcements
This type of content is typically shorter in length, dense with messaging, and intended for a larger sector of the public. As such, this content should be engaging and energetic and designed to generate interest or boost excitement.
Installation Videos
One of the most effective ways of advertising products is through the use of installation videos, presented on-site in the market. These videos give consumers the information needed to incentivize the purchase of the featured products.
Donor-Ask Videos
We see fewer students walking door-to-door selling candy and inexpensive products to raise funds for any cause these days. Whether it’s due to the fact that parents don’t want their kids walking alone, they live in communities that makes this practice impractical, or for some other reason, we just don’t see it anymore. Donor-Ask videos are a great way to bring this type of fundraising back into the community.
Producing digital storytelling campaigns is an effective way of getting the word out about the need in the community and drawing donors to the cause. They can range from small projects for individual fundraising needs to larger projects for annual events.
Demo Videos
When the product or service you provide takes more than a simple elevator pitch to explain to target audiences, demo videos that utilize digital storytelling elements are a great way to engage that audience and take them across the finish line.
Not only do demo videos get concepts across efficiently, but they can be made memorably enough to leave viewers thinking about that service or product long after the video has ended.
Corporate Presentations
Corporate presentations often fall into the realm of dull slide decks. It’s an effective way to ensure all the essential points are presented, but it’s not always effective at engaging participants or getting them to retain the information. Utilizing digital storytelling concepts in corporate presentations through produced webinars or announcements for company distribution is a much more effective method.
Elements of an Effective Digital Story
In order for digital storytelling techniques to deliver the biggest benefit, there are some essential elements that must be present. There is no specific way that stories must be constructed, but including these elements ensures the story contains the elements that will engage students and make the lesson stick.
Narrative Structure
For stories to flow well and present a compelling reason to finish it, they must follow a clear narrative structure. This includes clear beginning, middle, and end sections that are tied together with a central theme or message. It is possible to arrange a digital narrative structure in non-traditional ways, but creating a full arc that ties all sections together is the most effective way to create memorable projects.
Multimedia Components
Second, to meet the digital requirements that make it digital storytelling, we must incorporate a variety of different media formats. This includes still images, video clips, and audio. Each of these items can be broken down even further and used creatively to provide a polished final product. Here’s what we mean by each one.
- Still Images – Still images may include things like photos, illustrations, and graphics. Still images are great for providing clarification and for punctuating points within the story.
- Video Clips – Any clips that enhance the experience will make the story more powerful. Using a variety of clip types and tying them together with thoughtful editing keeps the story progressing forward and keeps learners interested.
- Audio – The specific audio used in the project has the power to create emotional resonance, guide the pace, and enhance the storytelling. Audio includes both music/sound effects and voiceover.
- Text – In addition to spoken words, including text as a visual element in projects can help us expand on topics and provide supplemental information.
- Graphics and Visual Effects (VFX) – The use of graphics and visual effects can provide the same benefits as plain text, but they can also enhance the visual aesthetics and add artistic elements to the project.
Interactivity
The interactive nature of digital storytelling platforms allow learners to easily access supplemental information that both enhance the learning experience and deliver a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Clicking on an interactive map gives learners added information about the location where the story takes place, and the ability to chat with others online provides multiple perspectives from which they can come to well-researched conclusions. This interactivity is what truly sets digital storytelling apart.
Personalization
Personalizing stories so that they are tailored to specific audiences makes them more relatable and impactful. A story around a middle-aged protagonist may not resonate with younger audiences, but a story built around characters of the same age comes across much differently. Similarly, building a corporate presentation around characters that mirror the workforce will be much more impactful than building it around characters that do not.
Platforms and Tools
There are a wide range of digital storytelling platforms and tools on the market, but not every example of digital storytelling platforms is the same. Each one allows creators to produce and share digital stories, but some offer more useful features and have a gentler learning curve than others. Working with easily accessible, feature-rich platforms and tools gives us seemingly unlimited resources with which to build our digital stories.
How Can Companies Use and Benefit from Digital Storytelling?
To provide a solid bridge to the future, the entire community must get behind teaching the next generation the beneficial behaviors they will need to succeed. When companies, utilities, and government organizations sponsor programs for local students or their employees, it benefits the community in a number of ways. Here are some benefits of digital storytelling for companies.
Development of Beneficial Behaviors
We must all work toward the adoption of beneficial behaviors for our communities to successfully navigate the future. Sparking interest in learning about and adopting these beneficial behaviors can be challenging, but through digital storytelling, we can simplify the process and improve outcomes. This can benefit our local communities through bolstering conservation efforts, raising environmental awareness, and more.
More Effective Employee Training and Development
By turning more traditional training materials that do not inspire strong engagement into stories that illustrate key concepts, challenges, and successful outcomes, more employees can become well equipped to tackle their daily challenges in more effective ways. Illustrating creative processes and solutions in memorable ways can improve team morale and cohesion.
Promoting Brand Values and Company Mission
Promoting a company’s values and mission through stories of the people who work together to make it happen can be powerful and boost employee morale and team collaboration. An engaging story has the power to tie participants together and make teams more effective. Team building exercises that incorporate interactive digital storytelling elements can increase the exercises effectiveness.
Creating Product Awareness
One of the most challenging aspects of doing business in the modern marketplace is generating product awareness. Driving product awareness gives organizations a competitive advantage in their market segment. The advantages of product awareness include things like increased sales, enhanced marketing efficiency, and ultimately, brand loyalty. Utilizing digital storytelling methods to create a narrative surrounding a product or service is an effective and efficient way of creating product awareness.
Inspiring Sustainability Practices
Digital storytelling is also a way for organizations to inspire sustainability practices. Promoting your organization’s sustainability efforts by highlighting challenges, successes, and individual contributions through interactive storytelling is an effective way of inspiring employees and customers to adopt sustainability practices and support your company’s environmental initiatives. It is also a great way to show the community you care.
The NTC Studios Approach
NTC Studios allows organizations to harness the power of digital storytelling with a platform and team of education and entertainment professionals that have been producing quality programming for over four decades. NTC’s speciality is translating clients’ communication goals into memorable visual experiences that are true to their brand and fresh to their audience.
Programming can be personalized to both audience and industry with a combination of effective educational and entertainment concepts. That means every project resonates with the audience with the most important takeaways front and center.
Accessing Effective Digital Storytelling Services
Effective digital storytelling is an artform that takes a lot of practice to hone. Its simplicity in concept does not translate into simplicity in execution. Working with a studio that specializes in digital storytelling is the most efficient and cost-effective way of putting a project together that inspires change in individuals and the greater community.
NTC Studios offers a wide range of digital storytelling services designed to reach, teach, entertain and inspire your customers and communities. With decades of production experience rooted in educational programming and community outreach, NTC Studios has developed a knack for connecting ideas to action through creative engagement. If you would like to learn more about how you can sponsor a program for your employees or for other members of your community, reach out to learn about how to partner with NTC to develop the program to reach your audience.