DIGITAL STORYTELLING OUTLINE Richard M. Cano

Digital Storyline One: Convergence and the Digital Immigrant

The traditional and the digital are coming together in a convergence that impacts everyone. Technology has found a way to make our lives easier by converging itself into traditional forms of accomplishing tasks. Even though technology has made our lives easier, there are still some who struggle with the newer forms of digital media. It is important that we understand this fact and try to realize where we fall short as a society.

One way to depict this convergence is to show how it is happening in the here-and-now. Many people don’t notice how this is happening, and go about their lives using digital media in place of more traditional approaches. Showing these against the more traditional approaches can create a dynamic that will enlighten if not stun viewers. Some examples are traditional phones against cell phones, a billboard versus the new electronic signs, and watching television versus watching online movies.

A good way to demonstrate how this convergence is taking place is to interview a digital immigrant, one who still struggles with the adaptation of digital media. Portraying the struggles that a digital immigrant has with these types of technology will help us to understand how digital media has evolved. It will also help in understanding how digital media looks and feels to a digital immigrant, furthering our understanding of the struggles with the convergence.

Portraying the dynamic between traditional and newer media is a good way to enlighten the audience as to the convergence of these two forms of media; furthermore, interviewing a digital immigrant can help us understand the trouble that comes with this convergence.

Digital Storyline 2: Digital Media and its Significant History

Digital media, since its emergence, has had many significant events that have transformed it into what it has now become. Email was part of a government project that evolved into an everyday use for everybody. The Internet helped email and propelled information into a giant resource of vast knowledge. Google and other search engines found a way to quickly query this information for us to have at their fingertips. Social media has evolved to extend our communities past physical bounds. Digital media has become something grand and needs to be shown as an evolution, with certain events happening in linear time.

Images of technology pertaining to certain historical events can be shown in a linear passage of time, from when media was more separated to the present day, in an attempt to describe the progression of technology against traditional media and their convergence. I believe that email is a great way to start this progression; in addition, showing how the Internet evolved from the basic structure of the Intranet would be a great secondary position. Other developments might include the cell phone that propelled pads, readers, and eventually the computer/pad. Showing technology this way will set up an interview processes with questions developed from the interviewee.

Interviewing a digital native, who might not know of this progression, would decipher areas that need to be explained further so that other digital natives can know how the newer technology has matured. For instance, many digital natives may not know about car phones and how prior to cell phones they would literally be plugged into cars with a cord. They may not know that search engines had not been developed at some point; the web URL had to be entered into the address bar directly in order to reach a website. Similar developments may be unknown to a digital native, and it is important for them to understand that digital technology is every-changing, that what they know today may be completely different in the future.

Showing the developmental progression of digital technology can have an impact on digital natives; digital natives may in turn have questions about its history that they did not know. It is important for these digital natives to understand that, even the technology used today, technology is every-changing and will probably change in the future.