If you can print it from your Mac, you can save it as a PDF. This works with nearly all applications, but it’s particularly useful for saving web articles you’d like to highlight in Preview or another PDF annotation app. From Most Applications (1) Type command p (for “print”) (2) Select “save as PDF” from […]

Damian Doyle and I attended this summer’s Digital Media and Composition Institute (DMAC) at Ohio State University, where we got to play around with lots of digital tools and toys. We also read a variety of articles on the pedagogy and practice of digital composition, some of which I plan to share here soon. Damian […]

After you log into Google Drive, look at the menu on the left. At the bottom you’ll see an option for Owner, Type, More that gives you a variety of options for sorting and searching through all the files your Google Drive account has access to. When you click on Owner, Type, More, a drop-down […]

Using these apps gives you an easy way to turn photos and video clips into custom content for your projects. DESKTOP APPS WEB APPS MOBILE APPS iPhone/iPad FIND MORE DEMOS Here’s a demo of Cartoon the World, which I made back in 2012. The app hasn’t been updated in a while, so I’d recommend looking […]

Before you start thinking about how to bring your story “alive” via multimedia, make sure you actually have a good story to tell. A compelling story told through stick figure animation is much more powerful and engaging than a bunch of whiz-bang special effects that have no purpose. You can probably get people to watch […]

Definition: A “final cut” is the filmmaking equivalent of a writing project that’s ready to publish and distribute to audiences, which means that it’s gone through the final stage of editing and is ready to stand alone. The final stages of editing include: adding visual and sound effects, trimming or adjusting clips to control pacing, […]

This screencast is part of a series on how to create a CDS-style digital story using iMovie ’11, but you might find it useful even if you plan to use iMovie for other types of projects. In this screencast you’ll learn how to add title cards to your project for several different purposes. You can […]

NOTE: This is the Final Project assignment for my Fall 2013 section of WRTG 3020. For the last few weeks of the semester, you’ll work on developing a VERY SHORT message about gender socialization that you’ll deliver via a new media format. You can find the key details below, but I’ll also flesh out the […]

You can adjust any images you drag into iMovie by cropping or rotating them or by making them pan or zoom (i.e., the Ken Burns effect). Any adjustments you make to the images within iMovie are “non-destructive,” which means that the original images won’t be changed in any way. iMovie only applies your adjustments to […]

I’ve been telling my students that writing is a “design art” for a while now, as a way of conveying that rhetorically effective writing is about more than stringing words together: it’s about designing a “user experience.” I haven’t heard this phrase used to describe writing all that often, but I just did a Google […]

NOTE: Before you save an image you plan to use in a project that will appear on a public web site, be sure you’ve read and understood the guidelines on this page: Finding images & other media you can use in your projects The WRONG WAY to Save Images I’m starting with this section to […]

Here’s a digital storytelling project a student made mostly with cut-out animation and a small amount of voiceover: Training in Pain, by Taylor Powers. (When I track down the info she included with the final version, I’ll add that to this post.)

50 Ways to Tell a Story DS 106 Assignment Bank DS 106 Daily Creates ABOUT DS 106: DS106 is an innovative open digital storytelling class at U. of Mary Washington. The course broadens the definition of “digital storytelling” in significant ways, to the extent that the course is really more about digital identity and creativity, […]

If you tried inserting an audio clip into your iMovie project and found that it became the background soundtrack for the whole project, so you couldn’t reposition it or apply audio adjustments, then this tip will show you how to fix that problem. When you drag an audio clip from the Music browser into your […]