Twitter friend Jessica Knott shared this free download today, the How-To-Guide: Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. The guide was written for educators to teach students how to connect, collaborate, and communicate through digital storytelling.

Storytelling is an ancient form of teaching. Before books or reading and writing became widely spread and available, oral storytelling was the only form wisdom and knowledge of the people were passed down from elders to children. [...] Digital storytelling gives us the ability to reach and disseminate our stories further than ever before in history. Storytelling, no matter in what form or media created in, is a powerful tool to transmit knowledge, culture, perspectives and points of view.”

Tolisano writes about the relationship between storytelling and teaching, and provides step-by-step instructions on how to use digital tools. I just read the other day about using Google Earth to teach literature, but some of the other tools Tolisano covers are new to me and I’m looking forward to playing around with the Mac equivalents.

You can download your copy here. It’s a quick read and handy reference guide for anyone interested in learning more about digital storytelling tools.

I don’t know what bookstore I was in when I first came across the illustrated version of The Elements of Style, but I know I was with Pam, and I know I dragged her over to the display so I could show her the artwork inside.

So I was thrilled to read The 99 Percent’s interview with the talent behind all that loveliness, Maira Kalman. In “The Pursuit of Happiness”, Kalman talks about how she became an artist, what inspires her, and her latest project. But I especially love what she has to say about the art of storytelling in relation to her illustrations:

I think everything I do is narrative, but it’s not just a story, it’s a movie – a movie of my life. And usually I’m trying to put too much information in one image. But because I thought that I would be a writer, and that’s how I started out – as a writer and not as an artist – then when I decided to start drawing, it was going to be narrative. It’s things that are from my life, and things I’ve seen, and things I’ve seen in books. It’s always telling stories.”