What is Digital Storytelling?

Our Approach to Telling Powerful Stories

Digital Storytelling is…

Digital Storytelling is both a process and a product. The process of Digital Storytelling includes unique facilitation components, skills, and techniques that help participants create meaningful digital story about their life. The product of this Digital Storytelling process is a short, 3–4 min “mini-movie” (Digital Story) that uses images, videos, a voiceover, and various video editing techniques, to share an important story from a participant’s experience. Both the process (Digital Storytelling) and the product (Digital Story) can be used for specific purposes depending on project goals.

Our Approach to Digital Storytelling

There are many uses for Digital Storytelling in health and wellness settings but they can be broadly group into four primary categories:

  1. Education and quality improvement

  2. Advocacy/public health

  3. Research (knowledge generation & translation)

  4. Therapeutic intervention

Every digital story telling project has its own unique context and Common Language DST’s trainings provide a robust understanding on the core principles of DST so that trainees are able to adapt the process to their own goals and needs.

A man with glasses speaking into a microphone in front of an audience in a lecture hall with large windows and natural light.

“Facts bring us to knowledge, but stories lead to wisdom.”

— Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, Kitchen Table Wisdom

Personal. Meaningful. Compelling.

Health and wellness professionals are very good at providing facts and knowledge. However, as behaviour change is a central goal of most projects, simply providing facts will never be enough. Compelling storytelling is necessary to allow people to glean the wisdom they need to help them apply the lessons to their own life. This is where Digital Storytelling thrives. It helps all stakeholders create good stories that are well told using their own experiences, words, and images. These compelling personal stories are capable of influencing beliefs, attitudes, and values as a necessary precursors to any behaviour change.

A family of three (a man, woman, and girl) sitting around a kitchen table looking at a photo. The man is holding the photo and smiling, the woman and girl are also smiling as they look at the photo. The table has a laptop, a scanner, and some folders on it.

View Examples of Digital Stories from Past Projects:

  • A smiling family with two parents and three children sitting on a porch.

    Alberta Health Services

    Engagement and Patient Experience

    See Videos
  • A woman and man sitting at a dining table looking at photographs, smiling and laughing.

    Being There

    Helping Caregivers See Their Place in the Story

    See Videos
  • Atlas Institute website screenshot

    Atlas Institute

    Veterans and their families with PTSD

    See Videos

How Can I Use Digital Storytelling in my Work?

For Educators

  • Sharing Patient Stories to Students

  • Students Creating Digital Stories 

Meeting room with a large table, laptops, headphones, mice, notebooks, and a large screen displaying a presentation titled 'Digital Storytelling' by Mike Lang. Smaller screen shows the same presentation.

Non-Profit Organization

  • Advocacy Efforts

  • Staff Training

A speaker is standing on a stage in front of an audience, giving a presentation. Behind him is a large projection screen displaying a quote about facts, stories, and wisdom. The stage includes two red chairs, a small round table, a guitar, and audio equipment. A banner with the logo 'the alex' is also visible.

For Researchers

  • Knowledge Translation

  • Data Collection Methodology

Office room with a large wall-mounted monitor displaying a video call, a laptop on a small table, a comfortable sleeper chair with a high back, a small round table with books, a can of soda, and a banana, and a speaker on another round table nearby.

Contact Us.

If you have any questions about the trainings or how you could incorporate Digital Storytelling into your work, please contact us. We are happy to work with you to develop a custom training program to fit you or your organizations needs.