In this TED talk hosted in Youtube, Emily Bailin is a Ph.D. candidate in the Education & Communication program at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City expounds upon the value of digital storytelling. She starts her talk discussing a project called “Where Are You From?”

This project was given to 5th graders and graduate students. They all started will a simple answer I’m from X city or town. But that was not the answer. The answer is much more profound, Bailin was pushing her students to discuss in great detail the environments that shaped her students. The story of “where you are from” in this assignment was more about slam poetry, she had he students write a poem about where they are from. From writing they moved on to spoken word and then from there they moved on to audio and video elements. Bailin believes that the digital nature of the of the poetry encouraged outside the box thinking and better learning and creative outcomes.

The addition of spoken word changed the written word to a more visceral experience the poetry is meant to be experienced. Going into their neighborhood and shooting video and the addition of music and sound to their poems also added new elements of engagement. I learned that poetry can be an even more powerful learning tool and experience if technology and video elements are added.