Digital Storytelling for Humanists

*** Course Full ***

Instructors: Sonia Chaidez and Melanie Parlett-Stewart

Classroom: McLaughlin Library Room 265

Why do we tell stories? As a way to transfer knowledge, to make sense of human experience, teach values, and beliefs. Narratives address the listener as a human being rather than as a member of a class or society thereby increasing understanding of others. 

Digital storytelling is simply using computer-based tools to tell stories. These include pocket documentaries (using mobile devices to capture moving images), digital essays, mapped memoirs (embedded digital stories on a map), and interactive storytelling (gaming). They involve sharing the idea of combining the art of telling stories with a variety of multimedia, including graphics, audio, video, and web publishing. 

This workshop will give foundational knowledge to participants interested in learning how digital storytelling leads to transformative learning experiences and how it can expand digital humanities perspectives, research, and scholarship. Participants will engage in the process of creating their own digital story and discuss how this process fits into their teaching and scholarship. Participants will learn to use elements like pictures, graphics, video, and sound to add to their digital stories. 

The workshop is framed using knowledge, practice, and models collected after a decade of implementing digital storytelling into community-based workshops, digital pedagogy workshops for faculty, humanities courses and across 18 different disciplines including study abroad. 

Intended Audience:

This course is intended for participants who would like to experiment with digital pedagogy that is centered on using digital media elements to create stories that connect ideas, research, and teaching. Digital storytelling also offers students opportunities to reflect on course concepts and expand their digital literacy skills. It can be powerful tool used to explain points of view, data, evidence, and frame arguments with the ability to disseminate across multiple platforms.