Digital Storytelling

Create a website where people can share their personal journey with hearing loss. The stories would provide an insight into the daily challenges individuals with hearing loss face and describe how they took action.

Utilize digital storytelling methods to encourage website visitors to share their own stories by uploading videos, pictures, sounds, and text.

The website could include a diverse group of stories from a diverse group of people (different ages, backgrounds, cultures, etc.). Alternatively, stories could come from one particular community or region.

StoryCorps is a program on U.S. public radio that aims to provide people of all backgrounds with the opportunity to record and share their life stories. The program has a website where one can browse through the story database and record your own story. Since 2003, StoryCorps has collected more than 40,000 interviews from 80,000 participants. Educators across the U.S. have used the website in the classroom to teach history and interviewing methods.

AMD Alliance International aims to raise awareness and bring help to those affected by age related macular degeneration (AMD), an eye disease that causes a loss of vision. The AMD website features videos with personal stories, local resources, information, and the opportunity to connect with others affected by AMD.

Stories are how we think; how we make meaning of life.

You can call them mental models, metaphors, or narratives, but stories are how we explain how things work, how we understand our place in the world, and how we create our identities.

Personal stories can touch us in a way that is unique and powerful. A website that portrays living with hearing loss through the words and stories of people with hearing loss has the potential to inspire others to seek help and advocate for better hearing care.