【DST assessment】Qian Jiaxing

Golden Jackson, the maker of the digital story “outside the glass” posted in http://digitalstory.osu.edu/stories/community/, describes a story of teaching courses to children who have HIV/AIDS in Honduras with her friends as volunteers. Jackson thought it was an experience to challenge herself because she moved outside her comfortable home and went to an extreme poor and high-risk-aids area. Also it was a trip to broaden horizons. She taught community development, culture awareness courses and learned interaction of culture from society and the hospitality, ability from children. Jackson indicates that such kind of experience helps people to become a responsible citizen and realize various culture environments.
I completely appreciate this digital story from several parts, like the story itself, the voice and the pictures. First, it has an outstanding point of view. Jackson clearly sets forth her story and states her own thoughts. The story is interesting and meaningful. However, she may add more specific details, like the first difficulty she met during her teaching and how to solve it. And I think it is better to dig deeper. I suggest to telling some influences to her which may guide her behaviors in the future. Second, Jackson’s voice is beautiful. There is not break and no accent. And the most attracting thing is that she uses different voices from different people to support her statements, which makes story more vivid. Finally, pictures she uses are matched to her audit. While some of them are realist, some are symbolic. And she uses many transitions. The three reasons above lead me to judge it as a wonderful digital story.