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:
Education and quality improvement
Advocacy/public health
Research (knowledge generation & translation)
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.
“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.
View Examples of Digital Stories from Past Projects:
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Alberta Health Services
Engagement and Patient Experience
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Being There
Helping Caregivers See Their Place in the Story
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Atlas Institute
Veterans and their families with PTSD
How Can I Use Digital Storytelling in my Work?
For Educators
Sharing Patient Stories to Students
Students Creating Digital Stories
Non-Profit Organization
Advocacy Efforts
Staff Training
For Researchers
Knowledge Translation
Data Collection Methodology
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.