Digital Storytelling
The spirit of Llano Grande has been built largely on our appreciation of stories – how they teach us, how they allow us to express and share of ourselves, and how they inspire us to create change; and this appreciation has evolved into our use of digital storytelling as a powerful media tool.
A “digital story” is, at its core, a new way of telling a story, combining one’s voice with other media, including film, photos, interviews and music.
For generations, people have used the oral storytelling tradition to impart a wide range of knowledge. From folktales to fables and conversations to anecdotes, we have used our own personal histories as a method to teach, to relate, to sympathize and to celebrate. Our own stories are the key tool with which we have come to share and show our learning and our love for one another.
Digital stories have the same impact, and allow us to continue this tradition of storytelling in a rich and exciting format.
Each of us, as a unique person with many singular experiences and perspectives, has a lifetime of stories to share. We each have the ability to impart our side of an event, our own take on the past, or our own feelings about life. From our earliest memory to what happened yesterday, and beyond to the anecdotes we’ve heard from our parents and grandparents, there resides a wealth of knowledge and wisdom within each of us that would make for a great digital story, when we take the time to consider them carefully.
Through digital storytelling, students undergo an introspective process often missing in schools to form a stronger understanding of their identity and to find strength and voice in their story.