This portion of our "Digital Storytelling" web site focuses on the all important supporting resources. Initially, 54 web-based materials were identified and categorized on the "Supplementary Resources" web page. During this past year, this extensive list was reduced to the much more manageable set of "Basic Resources" which were identified as answers to the following three questions:

What digital storytelling classroom-based models exist?
Although access to the following links may be slow at times, the Scott County Kentucky web site is definitely our first choice for exemplary educational digital storytelling resources:

•    Digital Storytelling in the Scott County Schools - Georgetown, Kentucky at:
     http://www.scott.k12.ky.us/technology/digitalstorytelling/ds.html
   
•    Teachers' Digital Stories from Scott County at:
     http://www.scott.k12.ky.us/technology/digitalstorytelling/teacherstories.html
   
•    Students' Digital Stories from Scott County at:
     http://www.scott.k12.ky.us/technology/digitalstorytelling/studentstories.html

What components should be included in a good digital story?
Although there are a wealth of digital storytelling web sites available on the Internet, the following became our primary resource:

•    The Seven Elements of Digital Storytelling at:
     http://atr.k12.hi.us/tutorials/tutorials/digstory/elements.htm

What software can be used to create digital stories?
Our mantra, repeated over and over to teachers, was "It is all about the story ... not the software." For this reason, the recommended software resource is lest to the last entry on this web page.

A variety of software products that can blend images with narration can be used including Apple's "iMovie", Microsoft's Windows XP "Movie Maker" and "PowerPoint". However our students and staff are extremely impressed with the ease-of-use and power of Microsoft's "Photo Story 3" freeware for Windows XP. This product, together with, the necessary, Media Player 10 viewer can be downloaded from:

•    Microsoft's "Photo Story 3" for XP computers at:
     http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/photostory/default.mspx

To play digital stories created with "Photo Story 3" for Windows XP, one will need to install Windows Media Player 7 or later. The latest version of Media Player, together with previous versions for both the Windows and Macintosh computers, can be downloaded from:

•    Microsoft Media Player at:
     http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/default.aspx

Educators, looking for a step-by-step handout to help students use "Photo Story 3",  may wish to investigate the following Word document:

•    Digital Storytelling Using Photo Story 3 at:
     http://www.wsd1.org/digitalstorytelling/resources/supplementary/photostory-handout.doc

Educators, who have explored and embraced these "Basic Resources", should now be prepared to embark on an exciting digital storytelling adventure.