Category: digital story

Digital Story Critique: “Birth of the Internet”

For this digital story critique, I selected a video from the University of Houston’s Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling site entitled “Birth of the Internet.” The author, Anita Vyas, tells a personal reflection on how the internet age affected her life.  For this critique, I choose to judge the video on the following assessment traits (as established by Jason Ohler in his book Digital Storytelling in the Classroom):

  • Research – In telling her personal story, Vyas ties into the evolution of the internet.  She includes a number of photos of major scientific contributors, like Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, but it’s difficult to register their identities with the quality of the narration.  Vyas does a good job of finding both historical archive images as well as incorporating her personal photos from her upbringing in India.
  • Flow/organization/pace – At times, I was confused about whether this video was a personal reflection or a research project.  Vyas goes back and forth between discussing her experiences using a desktop computer in 1990 to mentioning the launch of the World Wide Web in 1992 by Tim Berners-Lee.  Most of the images flowed smoothly.  Vyes utilized the Ken Burns style of photo presentation.
  • Media application – About 4 minutes into the video, Vyes includes a video clip of, I believe, is Bernes-Lee talking.  This media element seems out of place given that the visual elements have mostly been still photos, illustrations and artwork.  On the whole, the mix of images makes for a nice medley of visual presentation. There are some nice close-up images of computer chips and keyboards that add to the overall flavor.  Nostalgic images of Vyas’s father and her own children are especially poignant.   She ends on an up-to-date picture of her Facebook page, which is touching.
  • Citations – Overall, Vyes attributes all the media elements she uses, including a copyrighted song from Coldplay and the theme from Sesame Street.  Likewise, there is attribution to many of the images, but this end credit segment speeds through rather quickly.

Personally, I think Vyes should have focused more on her personal reflection on how the internet changed her life rather than how the internet changed everyone’s life.

Digital Story Critique: “It Takes a Crisis”

Often times, an instance of adversity can have long-lasting effects.  In searching for digital stories that give a short glimpse into how people adjust to sudden changes in their lives, I found another story from the Charlestown Digital Story Project entitled “It Takes a Crisis.”  The narrator, Charlotte Valentine, talks about how the psychological adjustments she had to make before and after she decided to divorce after 13 years of marriage.  For this critique, I chose to critique the story using the following assessment traits:

  • Originality/Voice/Creativity – From her time as a shy child to her success as a confident Certified Public Accountant, Valentine narrates her own story.  She discusses how growing up, she always was tough to “please others” and then later on, she learned how to “please herself.” Although the narration sounds a bit scripted, it feels genuine.  The story collaborator, Daniel Rodriguez, gives Valentine “room” to tell her story through her voice and her archived photographs.
  • Flow/Organization/Pacing – Rodriguez wisely presents the story in chronological order.  He organizes the still photos making it easy for the viewer to absorb.  There’s a nice variety of image movement (some story creators rely too much on bring the photos in and out, which was popularized by documentary filmmaker Ken Burns).   The pacing of the images is accompanied by cuts of light and playful piano music.
  • Media Grammar – Overall, the media elements are put together well, but their is a moment where it looks like a photo of Valentine in her flooded basement, after surviving a hurricane, appears to be Photoshopped.  This moment seems to interrupt the genuine nature of the archived images.

I highly recommend anyone to view either this story or the many other stories on this site.

Digital Story Critique: “This is My Story: Dawn’s Story”

One of the Denver public television stations, Colorado Public Television 12 (CPT12), is supporting an initiative called American Graduate, an ongoing project to help local youth in their quest to avoid the pitfalls of life and graduate from high school.  Digital storytelling plays a key role in this initiative and CPT12 has posted a variety of videos created by American Graduate participants.  One of them is a story about a girl’s perspective in the foster care system called “This is My Story: Dawn’s Story.”

For this critique, I chose to review the video using the following assessment traits:

  • Writing – The author, Dawn, uses a very simple narrative to describe to the audience her experience as a foster child.  Details, like meeting her foster parents for the first time and going to church with her “new” sister, draw the viewer into her life.  On the whole, it sounded like Dawn had a good relationship with her new family while striving to maintain ties with her birth mother.  There was no hint of animosity or malice towards either group of people.
  •  Flow/organization/pacing – Not including American Graduate promotional material, Dawn’s story runs about 4 minutes.  She organizes her experience in a very simple chronological timeline from meeting her foster parents to seeing her birth mother again.  The linear progression is effective and, in some ways, takes the audience on a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride.  Nothing feels rushed and the photo images appear at a very steady pace.  The background music compliments the tone of the video.
  • Media application – In addition to the aforementioned background music, Dawn includes a good mix of original photos and video.  At the end, Dawn shows a present-day picture of the young woman she has become.  On the other hand, I thought she repeated a number of images too often and used some odd video effects that seemed out of place.

Stories of adversity take many shapes. I’m glad there’s a Denver-area television station that is giving young people an opportunity to express their rocky journeys through life.

Digital Critique #5: “To Be or Not To Be”

The experience of adversity can come from different cultural perspectives at various times in history.  From StoryCenter comes a tale from Alan Fong entitled, “To Be or Not To Be.”   It tells the perspective of an Asian-American conscientious objector during the Vietnam War era.   The video was posted in April 2013.  For this analysis, I chose to judge the digital story on the following evaluation traits:

  1. Story – Fong has a very clear voice that guides the viewer through the series of images.  Most of the historical stills give the viewer a sense of the students discontent at the University of California-Berkley during that time.  Fong includes images of Asian-American students, protest buttons, and also archival footage of Chinese railroad workers and Japanese internment camps to give the viewer his cultural perspective.  One thing I wished to hear, however, was what Fong is doing today.   Perhaps seeing a present-day picture of him in Berkley.
  2. Project planning – Fong does a fair job of presenting the narration and images in chronological order.  Much of the emphasis was on his time at UC-Berkley in the 1960s and 70s, but he refers back to Asian-American history from the 19th and mid-20th century closer to the end.   It feels a bit out of order, but I can understand the logic.  If a digital storytelling creates the narration first, then the visuals will compliment the audio.
  3. Citations & permission – Fong cites the Ike & Tina Turner music playing in the background, but he fails to credit the historical images he included.  Even if this project is purely for educational purposes with public domain material, a storyteller must properly give credit to content creators like newspaper photographers, magazine artists and historical archive collections.

On a side note, I was hoping that Fong would have made a greater effort to personalize this story about Asian-American history.  He could have included pictures of himself or his family to give some more context.   I enjoy tales of cultural adversity like this, but I wish Fong could talked a little more from the heart.

Digital Story Critique #4: “Adapting To A New Culture”

It’s one thing to be challenged by adversity in your own country.  It’s entirely another to face obstacles, such as language, in a far away land.  As part of my job responsibilities at the Community College of Denver, I help our students whose primary language is not really English.  Just this afternoon, I was helping a student with grammar and mechanical issues on a composition paper.  She was born in Burma.  She was not only having issues with things like spelling, verb tense, and run-on sentences, but she also was struggling with how to express herself.   I offered her some suggestions on how she might add more details to her writing and include more perspective.

That experience made me think about adversity in terms of culture.   This evening, I found an interesting narrative from digital storytelling page at the University of Houston.   The video is entitled “Adapting To A New Culture” by Yukiko Nishimura.   For this video, I chose to focus on the following attributes:

  • STORY: Nishimura creates a simple story, through the use of narration, photos and images, about her learning experiences in Japan as well as in the United States.   Sometimes it’s difficult for students to express themselves fully in a language they are still learning, but in this context, she tells the story well.
  • MEDIA APPLICATION: Nishimura effectively utilizes the visual elements to simulate feelings of anxiety, sadness, joy, and hope.  She overdoes the movement of the photos (sometimes called the “Ken Burns” effect) a little bit.   A little music at a low volume would have been nice too hear as well.
  • CITATIONS: All the photographs and images have been properly cited.  Much of the content has been licensed for use under Creative Commons and Nishimura includes small, but legible text at the bottom.  At times, it’s hard to clearly read the text because the moment of the content.

Nishimura does a very good job at expressing her cultural challenges and accomplishments in the American culture.   I think many students who practice English as a second language might benefit from using digital storytelling as a learning tool.