Stories to Remember. Digital Storytelling allows students to use a variety of skills to tell a story in a movie format. Students focus on a story topic and then go through the writing process to develop a script. Students make a voiceover of their script reading clearly and with emotion. Then they develop a storyboard of their script and find photos to illustrate each frame. Photos come from personal libraries or are downloaded from the internet from sites such as Flickr. Students observe copyright rules by searching for photos available under Creative-commons licensing. This also applies also to background music. (Jamendo.com and freeplaymusic.com are both good sites to search for Creative-commons licensed music.) When students have their voiceover, photos, background music and storyboard on a flash drive, they are ready to make a movie. Students match their photos to the voiceover, add the background music and effects, make adjustments as necessary and publish them.( iMovie HD 6 and Final Cut Express work well for digital storytelling on Macintosh. iMovie 08 has been redesigned and does not work well for this purpose. Photo Story is often used on a non-Macintosh platform.)

12 ESL students at Bellevue College completed a digital moviemaking project in iMovie HD 06 with their own stories. The assignment asked them to write a script focusing on resilience. Most of them wrote about a hero and how that person influenced their life. The power of these movies comes with the voices of the students and the story they have chosen to tell. The photos and background music are only supplemental. Click on the links on the right to see their movies. The movie below is the tutorial for the class.