The Power Of Storytelling

Messages delivered as stories are at least 22 times more memorable than facts. One of the reasons why storytelling is used as a tool for the transmission and sharing of knowledge, values and experiences.

Storytelling is exploited by educators to attract interest and to assist understanding. It is used to socialise, communicate, improve literacy and comprehension, help students remember, increase empathy and encourage cooperation. In fact, it can be combined with every kind of learning and teaching.

Why Storytelling Is So Powerful

Evolution has hardwired our brains for storytelling. That's because our brains become more active when we tell stories rather than if we hear facts. Our whole brain is put to work.

Stories have so much impact because we don't just hear them, we experience them. Some really interesting MRI research has even demonstrated that our senses can react to stimuli in the form of a story. It showed that when a story is being told, the areas that light up in the listener and the teller's brain is the same. Pretty cool huh?

But it doesn't end there. Storytelling

Helps us remember. The brain releases dopamine into our system when it experiences an emotionally charged event, making it easier to remember.

Increases Empathy. Stories stimulate the parts of the brain that helps us intuit others’ thoughts and emotions.

Encourages Cooperation. Our brain produces oxytocin after listening to a character-driven story. Oxytocin has been shown to help motivate us toward cooperation.

Digital Storytelling In Every Classroom

Digital storytelling is the modern version of the traditional art of oral storytelling. We see examples of digital storytelling everywhere - advertising, social media, television and movies. And it can be leveraged by all educators to help students learn, be engaged and motivated.

With Unity Technologies we have created a series of resources to help educators across all curriculum areas use and create digital stories in their classes.

Four animated explainer videos explain what digital storytelling is, why storytelling is so powerful, the pedagogical reasons to use stories in the classroom and how to develop 21st-century skills through storytelling.

Eight videos describing the digital storytelling process itself. These videos are practical videos that not only explain in detail the different stages of the digital storytelling process but provide real examples of activities to do in the classroom.

A set of teacher showcase videos. Real educators talk about how they have created elements of digital stories with their classes.

Finally, a set of Careers at Unity videos to give young real insight into the types of careers you can pursue in the games industry.

View the entire collection here.