My digital story is about the life lessons I learned from working with horses. I don't think that many people realize just how much can be learned when a kid engages in some sort of activity. You hear a lot of stories about how beneficial participating in sports can be, and I will argue that riding horses is a sport. There is a lot to be learned, especially when you do something for such a long period of time. I could tell you all about how riding horses helped me when I was learning to drive! But we'll save that for another time.
I ultimately decided not to change anything in my story. The main comment I received was to include more music, but I decided against this for two reasons. Number 1, and most importantly, I couldn't figure out how to overlay my music and my narration. Whoops. Secondly, I was afraid the music might distract from what I was saying, and I didn't want that. Therefore, I stuck to my original cut.
I think that my digital story could probably be an example for all of these things. I think it could most accurately go with 1 (Raise Awareness) and 3 (Create an alternate stereotype typically portrayed by mainstream media). For the first one, I'm raising awareness about how important being involved with horses can be, and that many important lessons can be learned. For the third, I feel like there's this image of little girls with ponies, and that riding horses doesn't require much thought or work. I don't think a lot of people realize just how hard those who train and ride work every day to make it all look easy.
Digital storytelling is a great way to develop digital media skills because it requires that you think about all those techniques that are used in the media. How do you want to catch the attention of your audience? What do you want to say? How do you want to say it? You have to consider each of those things while you're working on creating your own digital story, and that can make you more aware of what you're seeing. It's also helpful getting feedback from others, because you might use a technique (like humor) and not even mean to!
