Uses of digital storytelling in higher education

Digital storytelling spread in higher education in the late nineties with StoryCenter (formerly the Center for Digital Storytelling) collaborating with several Universities while based at UC Berkeley. StoryCenter programs with the New Media Consortium led to links to many campuses where programs in digital storytelling have grown; these include the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Cal State Monterey, Ohio State University, Williams College, MIT, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison.[citation needed] The University of Colorado, Denver, Kean University, Virginia Tech, Simmons College, Swarthmore College, the University of Calgary, the University of Massachusetts (Amherst), the Maricopa County Community Colleges (AZ), and others have developed programs.[citation needed]. The University of Utah offered its first class on digital storytelling (Writing 3040) in the Fall of 2010. The program has grown from 10 students in the first semester to over 30 in 2011, including 5 graduate students. Chicago journalist Mark Tatge started a Digital Storytelling program at DePauw University in 2011. Students learned journalistic-style storytelling techniques and published the resulting stories on a class website.

The distribution of digital storytelling among humanities faculty connected with the American Studies Crossroads Project was a further evolution through a combination of both personal and academic storytelling. Starting in 2001, Rina Benmayor (from California State University-Monterey Bay) hosted a StoryCenter (formerly the Center for Digital Storytelling) seminar and began using digital storytelling in her Latino/ life stories classes. Benmayor began sharing that work with faculty across the country involved in the Visible Knowledge Project including Georgetown University; LaGuardia Community College, CUNY; Millersville University; Vanderbilt University, and the University of Wisconsin–Stout. Out of this work emerged publications in several key academic journals[vague] as well as the Digital Storytelling Multimedia Archive.

Ball State University has a master’s program in digital storytelling based in the Telecommunications Department, [citation needed] as does the University of Oslo.

In 2011, the University of Mary Washington launched an open online course in digital storytelling titled DS106. The course includes credit-seeking students at the University as well as many open, online participants from around the world.

Digital storytelling is also used as an instructional strategy to not only build relationships and establish people’s social presence online but also as an alternative format to present content.

Digital storytelling in higher education can also be used for scholarly communication. Higher education students at the graduate and undergraduate levels create scholarly digital stories based on their academic research across disciplines, including American studies, anthropology, history, industrial design, and international studies.