Blog #8 DST summary and critique

The digital story, named “Outside the Glass” done by Golden Jackson in digitalstory.osu.edu/stories/community, describes an unusual teaching experience in Honduras. Jackson participated in a course to teach students how to service in Honduras, which she considered as a new adventure. In the course, students were assigned to design their own projects with community. Jackson stated that she learnt a lot not only from community in Honduras, but also from students’ unique experiences, like trash burning smell, beautiful scenes. According to three students’ writing, it was very precious chance for students to combine the concepts of community learnt in the class with practice in international circumstance.  

After watching this digital story, I rated it outstanding in several aspects. The purpose and point of view are very clear through the whole story; and they are emphasized both at the beginning and the end. A meaningful dramatic question: what means “outside the glass” is asked and answered in the story. Jackson’s voice lively expresses her ideas and emotions with proper pace. When she describes what means “outside the glass”, she pronounces with stress on “challenge”, “engage” and “expand”. And she uses three voice records from students to tell us their unusual experiences in Honduras, which is very interesting and appealing. In addition, the length of the story is enough to exactly tell the whole story in detail. However, I rated satisfactory on the use of images. Most images are photographs taken in Honduras, from which a true life is presented, but more symbolic images maybe needed to express her feeling. Overall, this is a very engaging digital story.