Unit 3 Summary

What is Storytelling? A question asked by ds106 at the beginning of this unit. I wrote a blog on this, about my own thoughts and storytelling as well as digital storytelling, and also an insight into Kurt Vonnegut’s views. Click here.

Daily Creates

So far within Unit 3 I have completed 2 daily creates, in which I have discussed within my blog post that you can access here.

Past DS106 Stories

To start with, I looked through some work on the in[SPIRE] site. It took a while to find something that grabbed my attention, and then I came across a video by ‘Barefoot Brittany’ of a video about what makes her happy. I think this stood out to me because I knew it was going to be a heart felt video that had a positive outlook. I like the way she has pre written little cards that show what makes her happy, and she reveals one after another. It’s a nice effect as it is simple and clearly gets her message across. What really makes this special, is how personal it is. Nothing else matters in this video apart from what makes Brittany happy, including parts of her life such as family, but then also parts to do with sport and interests. She touches on the main things that clearly stand out to her in her life, which of course, is special to her as a person. What makes this a digital story, is the way she has digitally videoed it but included the use of written work as well, on her cue cards. What could have improved the video, would be some music behind it to really bring out the mood of the video and to make it a little more enjoyable to watch, this would have expanded the media she used even further making this even more of a digital story. This story isn’t part of a larger story, it is definitely one just on its own that doesn’t need anything extra to add. It is fine just the way it is.

I then looked at a completely different piece of work, a final project from Spring 2013 by Lara Hampson. She created a trailer based on curious george, but put a slight twist on this by having the speech of the rise of the planet of the apes film behind it. This was clever as it completely changed the story of curious george, a cheerful children’s film, into a film about an aggressive monkey. I really like this as it completely changes the story but it works really well. This makes it unique in the way it gives it a new meaning to what we are actually seeing on the screen. She has used a mixture of video and sound to create her story, making this a digital story by using different forms of media.

These pieces of work definitely gave me an insight into what digital storytelling is, and that there is no specific way in which to create a digital story, it can be anything you want it to be.

Commenting

By using the ds106 random post picker, I came across a post describing a girls journey through her love for running. She went on to describe how she will continue to improve during 2015 but also posted a video of a run she did in an amazingly beautiful place. It really made me appreciate the way these things are organised, but not only professional runners, but those who just enjoy it for a hobby as well. It looked like great fun, and the post itself was really inspiring. It was very influential in the way that I should think to myself about what I did in 2014 that was life changing in some way and potentially write my own blog post about something such as that. But it has also inspired me to look into possibly starting training and to get involved in such activities. My work has only been similar in the way I have also used media such as video along with my posts, but different in the way she made it personal. I haven’t really done any posts yet that are just personal to myself and nothing else, which could be something to look into.

Unit Three

Unit 3 has been very useful in the way I have a much clearer idea of digital storytelling which has made me a lot more confident about moving on within ds106. The Daily Creates are becoming more of a routine where I feel more motivated to get them done, which is keeping me busy. I feel ready to keep moving on through the course and I am looking forward to it!