Digital storytelling is alive and well on podcasts (like Serial) and TED talks, of course. But how can you use digital storytelling to enhance your digital portfolio?
StoryCenter is one excellent source of information. In StoryCenter’s “7 Elements of Digital Storytelling,” we learn that the most effective digital stories feature these key ingredients: point of view, a dramatic question, emotional content, voice, a soundtrack, economy, and pacing.
Point of View
How can you help viewers understand who you are, your personality and your goals quickly?
- Are you a creative person?
- An analytical person?
- A leader?
- Are you detail-oriented?
Take a moment to brainstorm how you might express these qualities through design choices, text, images, video etc.
Dramatic question
- What’s your mission?
- What do you want to achieve as you leave college?
- In your career? Through community service?
- Within your local community? Globally?
- How can you express these missions and goals clearly and effectively – in words?
- Design? Images? Video?
- Which academic experiences and learning artifacts demonstrate your commitment to these goals and showcase the work you’ve done so far?
Emotional Content
- What emotions are appropriate for this story given your purpose and audience?
- If you’re applying to medical school and you eventually want to join Doctors Without Borders, you may want your audience to respond with empathy and respect.
- If you’re showcasing your art, you may want to stimulate intrigue. Which emotions are appropriate for your ePortfolio? How can you appeal to these emotions?
Voice
The style of your writing is very important.
- Is all of your writing proofread?
- Does each page sound as though it was written by the same person?
- For this audience, should your writing be casual? Formal? Somewhere in between?
Economy
How can you condense your pages so that they’re clear, concise, and straightforward? Your audience will, most likely, only glance at each of your pages, so try to minimize scrolling wherever possible.
Pacing
How can you vary the content and arrangement of each page to keep your audience’s experience of your ePortfolio fresh and engaging?
Want to learn more? Check out these resources.
- Apple’s Podcast Tips
- Digital Storytelling Cookbook.
- Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies
- “Information Is Beautiful”
- “Presentation Design: Be Like TED.”
- The Stanford Storytelling Project
- StoryCenter
- StoryCorps
- “7 Elements of Digital Storytelling”