Digital Storytelling

What is Digital Storytelling?

Digital Storytelling is a shorter form of digital media production that allows individuals with virtually any skill level to create and share a story or achieve an assignment outcome. Digital storytelling involves the creative process of combining narration with audio, images, and video clips to share a personal experience, explain a concept, retell a historical event, or make a persuasive argument to an audience. Unique to digital storytelling is the way it develops critical thinking skills through the use of an individual's creativity, self-reliance, and fundamental digital media skills to engage an audience for various academic, professional, or personal uses. CCD students can use digital storytelling to meet course assignment requirements, apply for a digital storytelling scholarship, participate in the Annual Digital Storytelling Film Fest with the possibility of earning a scholarship, or all three!          

Digital Storytelling - How to Get Involved

There are three main ways to get involved with digital storytelling. The most common two ways students get involved with digital storytelling is with course faculty or directly with the EXCEL Zone. Current CCD students can work with faculty regarding their digital storytelling or video course assignment while also receiving support from the EXCEL Zone. The last way to get involved with digital storytelling is through the EXCEL Zone digital storytelling student club called Tales of the C. Tales of the C provides students an inclusive space to engage actively with each another as well as sharing and embracing their personal stories through the use of different storytelling techniques. Current CCD students who are only interested in applying for a scholarship or making a film fest submission can work directly with the EXCEL Zone’s Digital Story Coaches. The EXCEL Zone offers student-facing digital storytelling training support as well as a certificate of completion. For more information, email CCD.excel@ccd.edu. 

Digital Storytelling Support and Coaching

  • The certificate of completion is two 4-hour trainings that cover the fundamentals of digital storytelling and the primary video editing tool, WeVideo. 

WeVideo Access

  • All student requests for the use of WeVideo are reviewed and approved on a semester basis, meaning WeVideo access ends at the end of each semester. Requests for WeVideo access must use the approved CCD student provided email account ending with @student.cccs.edu. Requests must include, student's first and last name, course instructor, course assignment name (or scholarship or film fest submission project name) and be emailed to ccd.excel@ccd.edu 
  • Faculty gain WeVideo access as part of their completion of the Digital Storytelling Certificate training and ongoing participation with the digital storytelling program.

Film Festival $250 Scholarship

What is the Annual Digital Storytelling Film Festival?

CCD’s Annual Digital Storytelling Film Festival showcases student and faculty who made digital stories created during the current academic year (Summer, Fall, and Spring semesters). There are two main categories students and faculty can consider making for a digital storytelling Film Festival submission. The first category is for CCD students who are eligible to compete and receive a $250 scholarship. The second category is for students not eligible for a scholarship and for faculty who want to demonstrate their newly created work.

Who is eligible?

Current CCD students enrolled in courses for the next academic semester are eligible for a $250 CCD scholarship.

When is the Annual Film Festival?

Film Festival submissions begin in the fall of each academic year and end in the spring semester on April 30 at 11:59 p.m. MT. This allows students who create a digital story for a summer, fall, or spring course of the current academic year to participate in the annual Film Festival in May of each year.

Film Festival Categories

Film Festival awards are given to one recipient in each category. First-place winners from each category receive a $250 CCD Scholarship. Submit a video to one of the following categories:

  1. STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math topics 
  2. Identity & Equity: Depiction of diversity, equity, inclusion, or a combination of these  
  3. Journalism: Collecting, writing, and editing information for media news/docu-story 
  4. Wild Card: Any experience, concept, event, or persuasive argument in DST format
  5. CTE: demonstrated use of DST principles for professional/work-related outcomes 

Student and Faculty Recognition Category

Current CCD students that are either graduating or transferring and faculty are eligible to submit a digital story for Film Fest recognition. The goal of this category is to provide a dedicated platform highlighting CCD’s student and faculty talents who otherwise would be ineligible for Film Festival scholarship submissions. In this category, any CCD student and faculty can submit a digital story that describes a personal experience, explains a concept, retells a historical event, or makes a persuasive argument to an audience. If a student is eligible for the Film Festival scholarship categories then they would not submit a digital story for the Student and Faculty Recognition category.

How to Make a Film Festival Submission

CCD students and faculty participating in the Film Festival must submit their digital story with the following items no later than April 30 of each year:  

  1. Video via a WeVideo or approved alternative link
  2. A PDF translation if the narrated recording is in a language other than English
  3. Use 0% of the copyrighted material (unless CCD has, on file, explicit written permission)
  4. Include appropriate citations for resources used in the creation of the digital story
  5. A signed CCD Photo/Video Release form 
  6. Student and Faculty submit their videos to the CCD's Annual Film Festival submission form 

Digital Story Support

Students interested in submitting a digital story can receive 1:1 Digital Storytelling support by scheduling an appointment with EXCEL! Zone’s Digital Story Coaches. For students and faculty, interested in gaining a Digital Storytelling Certificate of Completion, the EXCEL! Zone offers two 4-hour trainings to earn the certificate of completion including digital storytelling fundamentals and using WeVideo and Yuja to create a digital story (a final step for faculty is the Faculty Learning Peer Review). To request access to WeVideo students must use the approved CCD student-provided email account ending with “@student.cccs.edu”.  WeVideo requests must include, student's first and last name, course instructor name, and Film Festival project name to be sent to ccd.excel@ccd.edu. Faculty gain WeVideo access as part of their completion of the Digital Storytelling Certificate training and ongoing participation with the digital storytelling program.

Students who want to earn a Digital Storytelling Certificate (includes Digital Storytelling Foundations and Advanced series), students can attend a scheduled training series or make a special request for alternative dates by using the approved CCD student provided email account ending with “@student.cccs.edu”.  In the email request please include the following: student first and last name and interest in earning a digital storytelling certificate to be emailed to ccd.excel@ccd.edu. Faculty interested in earning a Digital Storytelling Certificate, which includes Digital Storytelling Foundations, Advanced, and the Faculty Learning Committee, must go to TLC’s Sign Up for PD page to schedule this series of professional development. 

Digital Storytelling $500 Scholarship

What is the Digital Storytelling Scholarship?

The Digital Storytelling Scholarship is for current CCD students who pay in-state tuition and are enrolled in CCD courses for the following academic year. This $500 scholarship honors students’ creativity, critical thinking skills, and the ability to leverage 21st-century skills to share a personal experience, explain a concept, retell a historical event, or make a persuasive argument to an audience by combining narration with audio, image, and video clips. CCD students applying for this scholarship must submit their digital story with the following items no later than April 30 of each year:  

  1. Video via a WeVideo or approved alternative link
  2. A PDF translation if the narrated recording is in a language other than English
  3. Use 0% of the copyrighted material (unless CCD has, on file, explicit written permission)
  4. Include appropriate citations for resources used in the creation of the digital story
  5. A signed CCD Photo/Video Release form 
  6. Student and Faculty submit their videos to the Community College of Denver Scholarship Application

Digital Story Support

Students interested in applying a digital story can receive 1:1 Digital Storytelling support by scheduling an appointment with EXCEL! Zone’s Digital Story Coaches. For students and faculty, interested in gaining a Digital Storytelling Certificate of Completion, the EXCEL! Zone offers two 4-hour trainings to earn the certificate of completion including digital storytelling fundamentals and using WeVideo and Yuja to create a digital story (a final step for faculty is the Faculty Learning Peer Review). To request access to WeVideo students must use the approved CCD student-provided email account ending with “@student.cccs.edu”.  WeVideo requests must include, student's first and last name, course instructor name, and DST Scholarship project name to be sent to ccd.excel@ccd.edu. 

Faculty

Digital Storytelling meets CCD Institutional Outcomes

Digital Storytelling supports the achievement of the following CCD Institutional Outcomes:

  1. Effective Communication is developed by translating concise writing into a recorded narration with images that add depth of meaning to the audience
  2. Critical thinking is strengthened as students meet course outcomes in a multi-modal way. To create a digital story students think about how to use verbal, visual, and auditory concepts to achieve assignment outcomes
  3. Finally, becoming an effective and ethical user of technology is strengthened as students learn fundamental digital literacy skills in order to achieve their goal of making a digital story.

Digital Storytelling Faculty Training Program

The faculty Digital Storytelling Certificate is a 3-part series available to faculty as professional development. The certification is designed to establish skills in the understanding and use of digital storytelling in order to implement digital storytelling into course(s). The training series includes 3 levels that progress to a faculty peer review of faculty participants’ proposed course project they want to implement. The series includes Digital Storytelling Foundations, Advanced, and the Faculty Learning Committee. Depending on the class size and participant tech skills, each training is 4 hours in length. Completion time for the program is 3 weeks as each training requires some independent project time for the next training. The final step of the Faculty Learning Committee is a 1-hour meeting to review the certificate earner’s proposed course assignment and rubric prior to it being implemented into their course. Once faculty complete the program they get a certificate of completion and can begin to integrate digital storytelling into their classes.  

Faculty interested in earning a Digital Storytelling Certificate, which includes Digital Storytelling Foundations, Advanced, and the Faculty Learning Committee, must go to TLC’s Sign Up for PD page to schedule this series of professional development. Faculty gain WeVideo access as part of their completion of the Digital Storytelling Certificate training and ongoing participation with the digital storytelling program.

DST Forms and Resources

Academic Support

Current CCD students are invited to 1:1 technology tutoring. 

Digital Zone offers tutoring for Digital Storytelling video creation.

DST Technology Resources

Student resources for beginning-to-end video support.

Photo Release

Faculty can show Digital Stories in their class without having a consent form signed. However, if you plan to submit a student's Digital Story to the Film Festival, the student must fill out this photo release form.