Digital Storytelling

I composed a digital story of part of my trip to the UK during the summer of 2007 using Picasa. In late June and early July Olivia and I traveled to England and Scotland. I was so smitten by Scotland, particularly the city of Edinburgh, that I chose it as the subject of my story. (It must be those Scottish roots in my mother's family - they came over from Scotland in the late 1700s.) Scotland really felt like "home", like I could just pick up and leave the US and live there "happily ever after".

In retrospect, there are many aspects of the trip that I could make into digital stories. For instance, when we were in London, Tony Blair was resigning as PM and Gordon Brown was taking over the office. (Almost three years later Brown has himself resigned.) We were at Buckingham Palace watching the changing of the guard and Blair and Brown's arrival to meet with the Queen was imminent. Press helicopters were flying overhead to catch sight of Blair and Brown's motorcades to the palace. The same day we were at Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey and there were protests going on against Brown and the Iraq war. I have never been that close to an actual political protest and it was exciting (for a long-time rabble-rouser myself) - history being played out before our very eyes! What a great story that would make if only I were a history teacher (alas).

There were so many wonderful castles and gardens that we visited, I could easily compose several digital stories on those alone. Would that not be great if only I were teaching botany or landscape design! Well, maybe I'll get the opportunity to compose such a story someday for fellow master gardeners.

All in all, Picasa was relatively easy to use. One can choose to insert text captions or voice to accompany photos. I kept my digital story to about 25 or 27 photos although I had many more photos I could have added. Unfortunately, I did not find a way to add music to my story. Perhaps this is not an option in Picasa, with my digital story being more like a web album. I was really hoping to add some bagpipe and Celtic music to accompany my story. So, if any of you out there have any pointers...