Seven Elements and Weather Effects

Digital storytelling puts thought, consideration, and organization into play. Without a well-thought out, organized storyboard, you can't have an interesting and entertaining story. There are 7 elements that are important to digital storytelling:

- First is point of view, which is the perspective of the author. Living in Corpus Christi, we see many people with tans because of the heat that we get during the summer and the bright sun, but then the tan fades to a lighter color as it gets colder (unless you're the type that goes to a tanning salon regularly).

- The second element is a dramatic question, which will be answered at the end of the story. For my unit plan, it would be, "How does the weather affect how people on the other side of the world look or feel about each other?"

- Emotional content is the third element, which are serious issues that speak to us in a personal and powerful way. Pictures of people that live in areas of extreme or harsh weather conditions, like in Africa where the sun beats down on them or in the harsh cold of Russia where the cold winter is the longest season, would pull on the heartstrings of viewers.

- Fourth is the gift of your voice - a way to personalize the story to help the audience understand the context. My parents come from the Philippines. Although that country is close to the border, they have people with many different skin tones over there. The degree of tan on your skin divides you into classes and makes people believe that just because they have a certain skin tone, they are better or worse than someone else.

- The power of the soundtrack helps to keep the story going strong and supports the scenes that it is associated with. For my digital story, I will use music that will go along with the weather that is shown in the pictures or videos and lend emotional support to those scenes.

- Sixth is economy, which means using the right amount of information to keep your story balanced. Since this will be my first digital story, I'm not sure if I can accomplish this, but I will to the best of my ability without leaving too much out or putting too much into it.

- The final element is pacing. You don't want to go too fast or too slow with your story. If you go too fast, your viewers will not understand what is happening. If you go too slow, the story drags on and doesn't seem as interesting anymore. My story will spend enough time on each image or video and not drag on or have unnecessary information so that it will keep the viewer entertained and they will be chock full of knowledge by the end of the story.

My unit plan deals with the science of weather and how it affects how people look in different parts of the world. I hope I can step up to the challenge of making my digital story a success!