Using Internet story telling tools in education

 

Vuvox (vuvox.com): Vuvox allows for the easy creation of interactive timeline-style presentations from photos, video and music. This is such a great, and straightforward way to tell a story – create a timeline of pictures, and add some music or other audio. In addition to being a great way to support a lecture on a given topic, it can also be wonderful tool for students to supplement a presentation, create an artisitic ‘statement', or perhaps even replace a traditional paper report (sources could even be cited in the presentation!).

Here is an example of a Vuvox timeline presentation, focused on preparations for President Obama's inauguration in Washington, featured on 2/15/09 in Vuvox's “Explore” section (this presentation is composed primarily of a series of pictures over a sound track, but keep in mind that you can utilize many types of visual content to Vuvox). It should be noted that Vuvox currently has three distinct areas of functionality, “Collage” (used to quickly produce interactive panoramas), “Studio” (for building a personalized media presentation, which can be placed in a Collage), and “Express” (for building presentations with dynamic content from RSS feeds and online albums).

One True Media (onetruemedia.com):  This is one of many tools/sites that lets you quickly and easily combine text, pictures, video, and audio into a movie format. The educational applications are probably similar to Vuvox, but with the result being in movie format instead of a timeline flow. Here is an example of a One True Media video.

Slideshare (slideshare.net): Often cited as a sort of “Powerpoint for the Internet”, Slideshare lets users easily create online slide shows. Obviously, these presentations can be used similarly to how Powerpoint Presentations can be used, with the significant difference that they can be viewed online, commented on, and imbedded in (or linked to from) other Internet applications, taking them to a whole new level. The ability to allow others to comment on them certainly adds to the educational possibilities, as a group of students can be asked to view a slideshow, and submit commentary. Here is an example Slideshare presentation.

For an overview of a wide variety of web resources for digital story telling, check out this page from Alan Levine’s wonderful “50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story” site: http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools.

Hopefully this introduction to these fascinating tools has captured your interest – now go explore!