The 8 Steps to Creating a Digital Story

Creating Digital Stories

with these 8 steps

Lay the groundwork

Share examples

Share your stories

Develop the vision

Brainstorm

Write the text

Gather media

Construct your story

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Make sure you’ve taught your students enough of the foundational knowledge they need to build a story from. If you work with high grade levels, you may not need to have covered all the material in class, but students should know where they can find the information they need.

Share examples of successful digital stories. Show student examples, and if you’re assigning your first-ever digital stories, you can use my example from this post or examples from other teachers who share classwork online.

Have students get all of their ideas down on paper. Remind them that this is the stage where anything goes!

Students should narrow down their ideas to one or two big guiding ideas and then put together an outline of how their story will go.

Time to write! Your students should show you a draft with all of the written text for their story. Older students may not need you to check this step.

Have your students gather all of their digital media in a folder or Google doc. They can upload photos of original artwork and videos here as well.

If your students have never used Genially before, teach them the basics before asking them to choose a template for their project. Then, they can fill it in with their text and images, videos, etc. They can also record themselves reading their story within Genially.

Create a space for students to show off their work. This can be on a class blog, school website, in a Wakelet collection or in a class presentation. Students will love seeing everyone's stories together and being able to see their creation among them.