The Five Steps to MultiMedia Storytelling course at News University was a great course for any journalism and public relations major to take. This course provided a lot of information that would be useful when writing a story.
One topic it discussed was choosing a story. It states that before you venture into the field, gather as much information as possible and put together a rough storyboard. A storyboard is simple a story outline that lays out all of the multimedia possibilities. When gathering information you should get a basic idea of what to expect in the field. Collect things such as photos, videos, maps, and different sources from the web to get a better idea about the story.
When you make a storyboard it helps to define the parameters of a story with all of your available resources. It also helps to organize and focus the story. This is a very important task to complete when writing a story. If your story is not organized, readers will get confused and may even stop reading your story altogether.
This course also states that once you’ve finished researching for your paper, refine your storyboard. Evaluate all of the information you’ve gathered and figure out what has changed from your original story. Map out all of the media that you have that should appear on each page. If creating a video, keep the video short. If using the web, be sure to include images for a visual element.
Overall, I believe this was a pretty good course. I am not really a huge fan of taking these courses but they are somewhat beneficial especially since I am a majoring in public relations. This course would be helpful for anyone who has to create some type of multimedia story.
