Digital storytelling and the recognition of its power as a technique for active engaged learning may seem new to many of us, but it has a long and rich history. Among the most remarkable centers of this movement is StoryCenter, an organization born in the 80s as the theater company, Life On The Water, and then emerged in the 90s as the Center for Digital Storytelling, at a time when educators and artists worked hard to change the perception that arts were the private preserve of only the gifted and professional.
Joe Lambert was one of the organization's founders and today serves as its Executive Director. He worked as a theater producer, director and writer, and took his community-based art skills into the digital age with the creation of the methods of the now well travelled Digital Storytelling Workshop. He and his StoryCenter colleagues have worked with hundreds of organizations and trained thousands of people to make storytelling a continual part of their lives in education, community activism, health and human services, business, art and much more.
Joe is a passionate believer in putting accessible digital storytelling tools like WeVideo in the hands of students as a way to spark interest, engagement, and active participation in their learning about their world. We asked Joe to comment on some quick tips that come to mind that he thinks would help educators who are bringing digital storytelling to their classrooms and schools; suggestions that might smooth the way toward achieving success and meaning. Here is what he shared:
Recognize that not everyone learns and creates the same.
Paying attention to differentiated learning needs and strengths is so important to encouraging people to tell their stories. Some learn by focussing on words, some by focussing on pictures. What might be effortless and intuitive for some are out of reach for others. Tools like WeVideo that offer multiple pathways to get the same thing done enable the budding storyteller to focus on the story and not fall into technical rabbit holes.
Make organization a priority.
Keeping your materials well organized is one of the tallest hurdles students face in all aspects of their working with digital documents in education. Digital files have a tendency to get misplaced. This has always been a challenge for beginning digital storytellers and video makers. Ive seen students and teachers alike give up in frustration. File management keeping ones various clips, photos, audio and graphics accessible, organized, and easily findable is vital. The Cloud goes a long way toward solving these issues. Teachers, students and their peers can collaborate on organization to keep things in order. Best of all, modern, intelligent systems that are born in the Cloud do most of the work for you, again keeping the focus on the story and not on processes.
Dont be afraid to push creative boundaries.
Features like compositing and green screen, things that studios might spend millions on, are right there at your fingertips. Students who embark on digital storytelling have notions of Spielberg, Bay, and Ken Burns fueling their enthusiasm. A stable tool that includes a broad creative palette is invaluable because it will naturally lead people in the direction of the more advanced bells and whistles. Encourage it! The tools are right there in WeVideo, so dont hold them back.
Go big and expand projects beyond the classroom walls.
Collaborative tools like WeVideo are not just for classroom group projects at assessment time. There is a huge community of educators and other programs actively using these tools. They can serve as a gateway to connect your classroom to other classrooms, to collaborators out in the community, not only for discussion, but to enable active participation in eye-opening projects that expand horizons. Students can go in and out of collaborative projects with anyone, anywhere, while teachers and administrators maintain total oversight. Now that is distance learning!
We are so thrilled to have access to this amazing, experienced storyteller and we have only just scratched the surface of what he has to share. Be sure to visit the StoryCenter website, especially its amazing blog, and keep an eye on the WeVideo blog for more from Joe in the very near future.
StoryCenter is offering all WeVideo education community members an extra special 25% discount, through December 31, 2017, on all their public workshop offerings. Just add the code WEVIDEO when registering.
Search
Video tutorials, lessons and tips
Read More
5 Great Projects to Start the Year
Four Tips from a Storytelling Master
Great Video Starts with Your Ears
WeVideo Upgrades Power Expanded USC Shoah Foundation IWitness Program
Knightsbridge Students Dive In and Share the Experience of the Great Fire of London
Follow WeVideo
--
Follow @wevideo
--
lang: en_US
--
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Digital storytelling and the recognition of its power as a technique for active engaged learning may seem new to many of us, but it has a long and rich history. Among the most remarkable centers of this movement is StoryCenter, an organization born in the 80s as the theater company, Life On The Water, and then emerged in the 90s as the Center for Digital Storytelling, at a time when educators and artists worked hard to change the perception that arts were the private preserve of only the gifted and professional.
