Week 10 Activities

Activity #1
In a blog posting complete the tutorial on The Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling by answering the questions as you go.

Element #1: Take a look at the two examples and see if you can identify the purpose behind each story. What is the point of view in each?

• #1’s purpose is to show how the children 'make' salt. They are teaching us a life’s lesson.#2 Through mother nature all things are possible. Solar power to make electricity, rain water to fill the tanks for the fish. Cycle of life.   Whose voice do you hear? I hear the children in #1, they explain their jobs. I hear the adult very briefly explain the project.

Element #2: See if you can find a dramatic question in the examples for this section. Is the question resolved in each movie or are you left without a resolution?

• #1 question is why are people satisfied with making their beautiful island ugly? The children are bringing it out to the public. #2 is about wasting food and how to fix that problem with a salt water pool.

Element #3: See if you can identify the emotional paradigms behind these stories.

•  #1 Is about the personal issues of teen depression that can lead to suicide. #2  Is about finding their roots through listening to their elders, and passing their culture to the next generations. #3 Is how children perceive stranger danger and what reality is true. They need to be taught that everyone may be dangerous.

Element #4: What impact that the voice plays on the overall effect of the story.

• #1 the woman’s voice personalizes the story. She is not narrating but answering a question without script. #2 The children singing makes me happy. I don’t understand a single word, but their little voices are so sweet.

Element #5: What impact does the music have on the emotional content or purpose of the story? The chanting sets the mood and makes it seem that we are included in their rite.

Element #6: Look at the examples in this section and consider the decisions the authors made about length of clips, types of transitions and sequence of events. Are you able (as a viewer) to fill in the missing pieces? Give an example?

• All 3 scenarios are stories with  different takes on the same theme. #1 was short and to the point. Each slide served a purpose and the narrator explained the story as it went along. It had a beginning, middle and end. #2 This is basically the same as number 1 only a little longer. However, each slide transitioned into the next with a narrator telling the story. There were no wasted moments or words. #3 Was a bit long, with a long transitions that made me lose interest. There were also added pictures that really didn’t add to the story. 

Element #7: How does the narrator use their voice to pace the story?

• The first story was too much too fast. The author was attempting to put a lot of information into a short period as a result spoke way too fast and sometimes words were not clear. Number two I felt was well done in the sense that a day in a small school was not typical of every other big schools. It was done with a sense of humor. 

Activity #2
Choose your favorite digital story and embed it in your blog and answer the following questions: I choose the health care stories and I cried through just about every one of them. It was very hard to pick one.


Point of View. What is the point of view in each?

• Each point of view had to do with the ordeal of disease of themselves or a loved one.  Whose voice do you hear? I heard from the caretakers. I am a care taker myself and I felt their pain on more than one story.

Dramatic Question. What is the dramatic question?

•  Not so much a dramatic question, but a dramatic statement. A statement that 

Emotional Content.

•  Every one of these videos were extremely emotional. I don’t think anything is worse than finding a parent is dying either from cancer or Alzheimer’s is causing the parent to forget. What is the emotional content of the story? How or why do you relate to it? I can relate to these, and I think that’s why I choose one, is because I have been there and now I am doing it. My Father died from leukemia and my Mother is slowly losing her memories. I thank heaven every day for my sister who shares the responsibilities with me. Where some of the authors were alone.