On this page:
“Digital storytelling allows students and educators to tell powerful stories using rich media, (video, graphics, photographs, music, voiceover etc). The finished product in the form of a short film, podcast etc can easily be shared with peers for critique and evaluation.”
University of Greenwich, What's the Story
Digital stories can be used to share personal experiences and reflections. They do not require high technical ability but can produce a moving and meaningful video.
What is a digital story?
Digital stories are short videos (usually 2-5 minutes) that combine visual images (mostly still but can be short videos), a voiceover and (optional) music to communicate a focused story. They are an extremely versatile format and can be made individually or occasionally in small groups. They often look at personal responses to events or challenges or tell transformational or historical stories. Their personal nature makes them ideal for reflective pieces, but they are not always reflective in nature.
Community building
Unlike, say, some documentary films, digital stories are best when they help us understand each other and build communities. They allow your voices to be heard and shared. When everybody in a group creates and shares a story, we learn more about them, who they are and what is important to them - which brings us closer and creates a stronger community bond. When writing your story, consider how you can touch your audience emotionally as well as intellectually.
If the idea of this scares you, remember you only need to share as much as you feel comfortable with. You can make a great digital story about your favourite sports team or TV show or an educational experience, it doesn't need to be about something you consider private.
The short video here (created using a sketchnote), tells you more about what the best ones are, and what they are not in this respect.
Examples of digital stories
Sometimes it is easier to understand what is needed by looking at some examples, so here are two that should give you an idea of what a digital story looks like. There are many other examples online. There are some particularly good ones at the bottom of the first page of the Digital Storytelling Durham website.
What technical ability/software to you need?
Very little. You can create them in PowerPoint. Or, if you have a little experience with video editing, then you can create them in iMovie (shipped with any Mac) or OpenShot - free video editing software for Windows (see this page on our Documentaries guide for more info).
Step-by-step instructions for some of the key techniques for creating a digital story in PowerPoint are given at the bottom of this page.
What images could you use?
Digital stories are image-driven stories, so you would need to find images that represent the different aspects of your story. These image can be:
Your own photographs or short videos, including scanned images of any older photos created before everything went digital! It is common (but not essential) to include some old family photos if your story is about you and your development or lived experiences - including anything that has been influential on your family and their lives.
Stock images/videos are commonly used to represent your experiences. There is an increasing number of them within PowerPoint that are free to use. We also have a page with links to free image and photo websites on our digital student guide. Some of these (for example Pixabay and Pexels also have short videos that can also be used.
Drawings and diagrams can be included if you need something more specific or personal. Even your own rough drawings can be really effective as they have that human touch that helps them connect with your audience.
Diagrams can be created in packages such as PowerPoint or Visio (both available through MS 365) and hand-drawn images can be scanned in using any of the campus printers.
Adding Voiceovers
Recording voiceovers in PowerPoint
There are full instructions of how to add a voiceover to PowerPoint on our PowerPoint Videos page (towards the bottom).
Recording voiceovers to use with other software
If you choose to use more sophisticated video-editing software, you usually record your voiceover separately. Before you record, make sure you have a script so you know exactly what you are saying - even David Attenborough does not ad lib!
Whilst professional filmmakers may have fancy microphones or dedicated sound recorders, for student projects, most people will use their smartphone or a laptop/pc with an integrated microphone or one that is part of a headset:
On a smartphone
Most smartphones have free apps like 'Audio Recorder' or 'Voice Record' that you can use to record voice and save as MP3 files or WAV files which can be imported into most video editing applications - where you can cut parts out, make general edits and layer over moving or still images. Experiment with positioning the phone at different distances from your mouth to find what sounds best. Alternatively, if you have earphones with a microphone in the remote (half-way down the wires) you may get a better sound recording into that.
On a laptop or PC
Most laptops come with built-in microphones and many headphones have microphone attachments. The University Library also have some microphone headsets you can loan if you need to - just ask in the Reading Room. Audacity sound recorder is available on most open-access campus machines and can be downloaded onto your own laptop (Windows, Mac or Linux): Download Audacity here. Basic edits can be done in the program and then exported as MP3 or WAV files to combine with your visuals in video editing software.
Where to record
This can make a big difference to the quality of the recording.
Choose somewhere quiet
It can often be better to record sound at home where you can control the background sounds better than you can at university. Some people like to record these quite late at night when road sounds are lessened. If you need to record on campus, take note of the point below.
Choose somewhere that is not too echoey
The best sound recordings are done in a relatively small room, where there are a lot of soft surfaces so that the sound is not reflected back from walls, tables and hard floors. This can be difficult at university where the quiet spaces are often quite 'hard' (for example the Group Learning rooms in the Library). Home may be your best option - or, if you can do it on an evening or weekend, one of the pods on the first floor of the library would be good as they have soft padded walls (note these are not available to students 9:00-5:00, Mon-Fri). There are some other pods around campus - for example in the foyer at the front of the Business School - which may be available during the day.
PowerPoint techniques for digital stories
This section is not looking at every technique that you may use within PowerPoint - but focuses on those that are the most useful and effective for digital stories. Please note the tabs across the top of the box below which you can click on for more options.
In digital stories, the images need to be as big as possible - either filling the whole slide or making up a montage or diagram that fills as much of the slide as possible.
A note on copyright
For most university work, you will not need to worry about image copyrights as you will be covered by the concept of 'Fair Dealing' in copyright law. However, if your piece is for a public audience, you would need to use copyright free images or follow the guidelines for using images with Creative Commons licenses (e.g. you may need to attribute the creator).
Inserting images
- On the Insert ribbon, select Pictures.
On the desktop version of PowerPoint, you will have three options (shown below left), but there are a few more on the online version (shown below right):
This Device - insert images that are already stored on your laptop or PC.
Stock Images - insert images from Microsoft's library of stock images. These can be very high quality but there is a limited number to choose from. All images will be copyright free.
Online Pictures/Search on Web - find and insert images via a Bing search. You can limit to images with Creative Commons licenses, but these may have constraints on use or may not be reliably CC.
Mobile Devices - if you are working on a phone or tablet, you can insert from your Photo library.
OneDrive - insert directly from your OneDrive folder.
Alternatively, if you have an image open elsewhere, you can often copy it and paste it directly into PowerPoint.
Moving and resizing images
Whether pasting or inserting, images are always placed in the centre of a slide and are often either too big or too small. The important thing when moving and sizing is to make sure you do not distort an image by stretching or squashing it (i.e. you need to keep the aspect ratio the same).
Moving images
- With the image selected (you will be able to see handles around its edges) drag in the middle of the image (you should see a four headed arrow which indicates you are moving the image).
Resizing images
- Select your image (you should be able to see handles around its edges) and drag on any of the corner handles.
- You need to drag diagonally – inwards to make smaller and outwards to make larger.
A two headed arrow will indicate you are resizing rather than moving.
Avoid the middle handles on each edge as dragging on these will distort the image leading to an unprofessional look.
For many digital stories, you will simply be resizing the image to fit the full slide as this will be the most impactful design. It is fine if the image overlaps the edges too - the overhang will not show in the final video. However, sometimes, you may wish to have more than one image on a slide, in which case, further formatting of the images may be needed.
Formatting images
There are many ways to format an image, and the Picture Styles gallery on the Picture Format ribbon is a good place to start:
(This may look slightly different on the online version)
Not all of the styles are suitable for digital stories, most of the simpler ones work best:
Avoid the styles with 3D effects as you lose the power of the image (the viewer notices the effect as much as the image). i.e. don't use these:
You can also add some formatting manually using the options in the Picture Effects drop down list:
This gives you more control over the degree of the picture effect than you get with the preset options. For example, the soft edge Picture Style from the gallery only has a slight soft edge, whereas you can apply much more of one from the Picture Effects>Soft Edges option:
To give a sense of movement when still images are shown, you can add zooming and panning effects to images to give the effects shown in this video:
These effects can be achieved using two of the animation effects in PowerPoint - an emphasis effect and a motion path. They will only work effectively on high-resolution images.
Please also note that the panning effect is a fairly advanced technique and you may not want to try it if you are fairly new to using PowerPoint.
Zooming in using an emphasis effect
You can zoom into the middle of the picture using the Grow/Shrink emphasis effect. For this you just need an image that initially fills the slide, but it does need to be high resolution as poor resolution become more obvious the closer you look. If you want to zoom into something that is not the middle, try increasing the size of the image slightly and moving the thing you want to zoom to more to the middle.
- Insert your image onto a slide and make it fill the entire slide (it does not matter if it overlaps slightly at the top/bottom or the edges).
- Display the Animations ribbon.
- Select your image and click Add Animation then choose Grow/Shrink from the emphasis section.
It will preview the zoom.
Now, if you wish, you can adjust the amount of zoom. This will depend on your photograph and can involve a bit of trial and error to get it just right.
- With the image selected still, click on Effect Options. It will be defaulting to 'Larger' (150%) but try 'Huge' (400%).
The likelihood is, this will be too big and you will want something between the two. You need to display more effect options to do this.
Just underneath the Effect Options button, click on the little arrow in a box to open the Effect Options dialog box. You can set everything about the zoom in this box, including the timing.- Click the drop-down next to the Size option and type the amount you wish to zoom into the box.
This is usually somewhere between 125% and 250% depending on your image.
- Don't click OK yet, click on the Timing tab at the top of the box. Set the Start to With Previous (so you don't have to click to begin the zoom) and set the length of time you want the zoom to take (the example in the video was set to 7 seconds but it could be more).
Note you can just type in an amount if you want it to be different to the ones in the drop-down list.
- Finally, click back on the Effect tab and add a 1 second Smooth start and Smooth end - again you can just type these in.
This will make it less jerky at the beginning and end of the zooming process. Always set the value for these after you have set the overall timing.
- Click OK.
Timing tab
Effect tab
That should be everything - use the Preview button at the left edge of the Animations pane to see what it looks like and go back and adjust things if necessary.
Panning using a motion path
Before you add the animation, you must size and position your image appropriately. You will need to increase the size significantly, which is why it should be a high-resolution image otherwise it will become too blurry.
The image on the left (or below) shows an image at its original size, see how it defaults to just fit the slide. The first thing to do is to add some transparency to the image. This will help you with positioning the image during the pan as you will be able to see the slide boundaries behind the image (you will remove this at the end).
- Select the image, on the Picture Format ribbon, click on Transparency and select 50% transparency.
- Now, resize (using a corner handle) to approximately double the size (you can change this later if needs be) and reposition the image so that it is placed to the left of the slide, showing what you want to see before you start the pan (no background should be visible). This could be the edge of the image or a slight overlap as in the example shown.
- You need to make it big enough so that the right side of the image overlaps the edge of the slide significantly. The more overlap, the longer the pan.
Full original picture on slide
Resized image - bigger with overlap on right (slide behind visible as the lighter box)
To add the motion path to create the pan effect:
- Display the Animations ribbon and click the Add Animation button to show the different types of animation effects.
- Scroll down slightly and select Line from the Motion Path section. It will default to use the down direction and your image will move down on the slide (but you will change this).
- On the Animations ribbon, click on Effect Options and choose Left.
Your image will move slightly to the left - but you will probably need to make it move further than this original amount.
- The motion path is showing as a line on your image with a green triangle indicating where it will start from, and a red one indicating where it will end. Click on the red triangle - it should change to circle and your image will look a bit weird, showing both the start and end positions of the movement.
- Hold your Shift key down (this will keep your line horizontal) and carefully drag the red circle to the left until the right edge of the second image is where you want it to be on the slide when your pan finishes.
- Test it by clicking the Preview button on the left of the Animations Ribbon.
It will almost certainly run too fast, but ignore that for now and just check the positioning first. If you need to resize or reposition, make the adjustments you need.
Now you can sort out is the timing - how long do you want the pan to take?
On the Animations ribbon, set the Duration to the length you need - in the example video it was set to 10 seconds but you could adjust this to your needs and narration.- Set the Start option to With Previous (that means it will start to pan as soon as you display the slide without having to click).
- Finally, set your image transparency back to 0% and you should be good to go.
It is common for digital stories to have music playing behind your voiceover. This often extends beyond a single slide, perhaps for the whole video.
Sourcing sound and music for your story
| Service | Offers | Web address |
|---|---|---|
|
Free Music Archive
|
|
https://freemusicarchive.org |
|
YouTube Audio Library
|
|
https://www.youtube.com/ audiolibrary |
|
Pixabay
|
|
https://pixabay.com |
|
ccMixter
|
|
http://ccmixter.org |
|
SoundCloud
|
|
https://soundcloud.com |
Adding sound to your PowerPoint presentation
Once you have chosen your piece and have downloaded your sound file, you are ready to add it to the appropriate point in your presentation.
- Go to the slide you want the music to start on (this could be the first slide or any other you wish).
Display your Insert ribbon and choose Audio from the Media section.- Find your file (it accepts most common audio files such as mp3, wav etc) and insert it.
A speaker icon will appear in the middle of your slide. You can move this and resize it to somewhere convenient. You can also hide it when the show is playing (explained below).
Editing the playback options
- When your speaker icon is selected, you should see an additional tab for Playback - click on this to display the ribbon. It has many options, including the ability to trim the audio and set its volume:
If you want it to play in the background across all slides, just click Play in Background.
When you choose this, several other options are selected - it will start automatically, play across slides, loop until stopped and the icon will hide during the show.
If you want it to only play across a few slides, there are some additional steps:
- On the slide displaying the speaker icon, click the Animations tab and then Animation Pane to display it down the right of the screen.
Click on the drop-down next to your music file in the Animation Pane and choose Effect Options.- In the Stop playing section, select the After option and choose how many slides you want it to play over.
- Click OK.
When you play the presentation, or record your voiceover, the music will now play over your selected slides.
