Digital Story

A digital story is a new and improved version of storytelling. A couple of decades ago, to get to know a story the only way was either to read about it, or to have contact with somebody who knew the story and could tell us about it. Nowadays, the methods of mass communication have changed. The computer presence not only at the work place, but at a corner at home, has revolutionized the way we study, work, and live. A simple action as taking a book from a bookshelf to read is an almost lost habit. We currently live in an era of rush. Every day that passes by people has less and less time to appreciate nature, to get to know the neighbors, and to get a book from the library, which is going to consume cruelty, at least two weeks of our divine time. Researchers and teachers has alarmingly seen how this has affected students, regardless of their age, and they have started to come up with praises and even bribes, to get the students if not appreciating reading, at least appreciating the history they represent. This is where digital stories benefit us. A brightly and strategically arranged meeting of narrative, images, music, and voice, to get the students interested and involved. Any story can be combined with different media elements, and accessible to the “reader”, at any time, and at any pace. The digital stories are usually short, just a couple of minutes, but the idea behind them is similar to a commercial, to catch the attention of the viewer/listener, keep them interested, and to express an important idea or fact, in a short, precise, and effective way. Being short, a digital story can be seen/heard several times, and the message that the creator wanted to communicate gets attached to the audience. However, the use for digital stories is not only restricted to the educational area. Many companies and business nowadays can get to know better, and analyze more efficiently a job candidate through a digital story. As said before, we live in an era of rush. A message which is sent in a clear, short, and precise way is ten thousand times more effective than reading a five hundred pages book and has no idea what the main idea was; or remembering the interview in which the applicant spent twenty minutes going around the same idea, or the one who with a 3 minutes message communicated his/her experiences, and ambitions.