Developer: Web Yarns

Platforms: Web browser

Audience: Teens to adults

Cost: Free

How to Rob a Bank is a digital story written by Alan Bigelow. Prior to finding this story I explored what a digital story actually was, as in my mind it was not dissimilar to an eBook. When I found How to Rob a Bank, I realised I was wrong. Beck & Neil (2021, p.123) describe digital stories as “multimodal short vignettes that combine storytelling with still pictures, video clips, music, and text using a variety of video software.” This description helped clarify things for me and piqued my interest on the topic of digital stories, which is one of the reasons I chose this format of digital literature.

How to Rob a Bank is a story that could be a described as a digital re-telling of Bonnie and Clyde (and indeed there is a reference to the movie in this story). I experienced the story on Google Chrome (my web browser) and used my keyboard’s spacebar and arrow keys to progress through the story. The story is divided into five parts and there is a

thin blue bar at the bottom of the screen that indicates your progress within the part of the story you are engaged with. How to Rob a Bank uses iPhone web searches, text messages, and apps (such as notes, maps, rideshare, games and Gmail to name a few) to tell its story.

The story is accompanied by music, by way of old school video game sound effects and Apple iPhone sounds, which I thoroughly enjoyed. How to Rob a Bank also follows the traditional format of a story, in that it has a decisive beginning, middle and end. Other aspects of the digital story I appreciated included the

fact that credits appeared at the end of each part and overall, this was easy to use and navigate and it was available to view on a platform I already had, so I did not have to download anything, like an application. Furthermore, all aspects of How to Rob a Bank were free from beginning to end, there were no in app fees to view something as I encountered with Dark Forest, although that is a different format.

 

My primary reason for engaging with this particular format of digital literature was simply for my own exploration, however I am curious if digital stories can be used in other contexts such as education or librarianship. An example of digital stories being used for the purpose of education is Miles and Jenkins (2020) use Twine to present a visual essay to highlight transgender issues and concerns. A multimodal approach to learning could be greatly beneficial to students.

This is explored by Beck & Neil (2021, p.125) who studied the benefits of digital storytelling in the field of teaching and found digital stories could help foster more discussion, engage students, develop critical thinking skills, and use of IT skills.  Beck & Neil (2021, p.126) further identified challenges for use in teaching which included finding an appropriate digital story and students not always recognising the point intended point.

Still in the context of education going beyond using digital stories, the creation of digital stories can be viewed as inclusive learning as creating digital stories involves multiple modes of meaning-making, which requires multisensory engagement, it allows learners with diverse needs and preferences a range of options with regards to literacy processes and products (Oakley, 2017, p. 159). De Jager et al. (2017, p. 2552) highlight the increased use of digital stories in education with digital storytelling being used to encourage writing and language skills along with digital literacy skills.

With regard to libraries and digital stories, and article by Bowler et al. (2012) on the topic of digital materials raises questions such as is the content accessible for all readers? Will they be enriched by the material? Blithe et al. (2015) discuss how staff at the academic library at the University of Nevada have played a proactive role in designing academic digital storytelling assignments, with a librarian collaborating with a media specialist and a course coordinator in order to plan what students would learn and do. Furthermore, libraries can use digital stories to promote their services to patrons. This was demonstrated by the State Library of South Australia who have created Story Wall, an art installation consisting of narratives (Skelton, 2015).

These examples demonstrate the format of digital stories allows for a lot of freedom, and that it can be used in a variety of ways within education and libraries, and also simply for leisure.

 

References:

Beck, M. S., & Neil, J. A. (2020). Digital storytelling. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 39(3), 123–128. https://doi.org/10.1097/cin.0000000000000667

Bigelow, A. (n.d) How to Rob a Bank (2016-2017). Retrieved from https://webyarns.com/howto/howto.html

Blithe, S. J., Carrera, W., & Medaille, A. (2015). Stories of service-learning: Guidelines for increasing student engagement with digital storytelling. Journal of Library Innovation, 6(1), 60-74.

Bowler, L., Morris, R., Cheng, I., Al-Issa, R., Romine, B., & Leiberling, L. (2012). Multimodal stories: LIS students explore reading, literacy, and library service through the lens of “The 39 Clues”. <i>Journal of Education for Library and Information Science,</i> <i>53</i>(1), 32-48. Retrieved August 15, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23249095

De Jager, A., Fogarty, A., Tewson, A., Lenette, C., & Boydell, K. (2017). Digital storytelling in research: A systematic review. The Qualitative Report. 22(10), 2548-2582. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2017.2970

Miles, A.P., & Jenkins, K. (2017). (Re)Born digital—trans-affirming research, curriculum, and pedagogy: an interactive multimodal story using Twine. Visual Arts Research 43(1), 43-49. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/666529.

Oakley, G. (2017). Engaging students in inclusive literacy learning with technology. International Perspectives on Inclusive Education, 159–176. https://doi.org/10.1108/s1479-363620170000011011

Skelton, V. (2015, November 13). Digital storytelling at the inside out library. Information Today Europe. https://www.infotoday.eu/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/Digital-storytelling-at-the-inside-out-library-107583.aspx