Multimedia storytelling, 6 free and free tools to get started

Last updated on 1 February 2022

How can multimedia storytelling bring your publications to life on the web? How to integrate to enrich the text of images, the sound of infographics and other timelines? Here are six tools made available to everyone by The Northwestern University Knight Lab Chicago's worth a visit. They are free and free. To advise without fear to your colleagues or students.

Six storytelling tools, as they say in English. This list includes: Juxtapose, SceneVR, SoundCite, Storyline, StoryMap and Timeline.

What is the Knight Lab?

The Knight Lab at Northwestern University is a community of designers, developers, students and educators working on experiences to push journalism into new formats with innovative, easy-to-use free tools. This unique lab is hosted by the University of Chicago and offers a space for collaborative development and reflection that brings together passionate students, teachers and researchers.

The platform targets journalists but it is followed by teachers from all over the world being particularly suitable for pedagogical use.

Knight Lab tools are easy-to-use tools that can help write and tell stories.

Six free tools for multimedia storytelling

The Knight Lab teams are working on many tool projects of all kinds. Six of them have reached maturity. They have been used for several years by thousands of internet users. I have presented several of them here on Tice Tools.

Juxtapose. Create an image before/after

Juxtapose is one of the tools I like the most in this small suite of multimedia storytellers. It allows to create a visual effect to mount the evolutions of a place with two images. A kind of virtual curtain that is moved with the mouse makes it possible to discover the front, the after. Great for comparing two similar media elements (for example, a historical photo and a current photo). It can also be used to explore changes over time, such as the development of a building or the skyline of a city or the destruction of a rainforest.

Soundcite. Inserting sound into a text

Soundcite that I have presented here A few weeks ago it was possible to inject sound directly into the text. By adding online sound clips to your story, you offer the player a multimedia text. The Souncite storytelling tool adds a play button above certain words you publish online. When people click on the play button for these words, they hear the sound you have inserted. No opening of another window, the player will not see a built-in audio file, so it will be able to focus on playback.

Scene VR. Create 360° photo panoramas

A tool to offer a real immersion via images. Scene VR Turns panoramic and VR-ready photos into a visual story. With Scene you'll be able to turn the panoramic photos you've taken on your phone into an interactive series of immersive scenes that readers can explore in their browsers. Simply export pano or 360 photos and arrange them in the order of the story you want to populate. More technical than the other storytelling tools on this list but very spectacular.

Storyline. Make the numbers speak

Storyline allows to build an interactive linear graph. This includes graphs, axis labels and maps. You will be able to annotate a data graph to explain how and why the numbers have changed over time. You can use it to explain fluctuations in Covid figures, changes in wages or jobs, or any trends and changes in data over time. To use it you need to format your data in a Google spreadsheet. If you use another spreadsheet, you will first need to import them into Google Sheets. The graphic created with Storyline can be shared life a simple Url or integrated on a site or blog.

Storymap. Tell interactive stories with maps

Storymap is another of my favorite tools in this toolkit for multimedia storytelling. It allows you to tell a story on a map highlighting the locations of major events. Storymap helps you build a slide-by-slide story, using a dedicated Knight Lab site. Simply choose a place on a map, add text and point to any media (such as a YouTube video) you want to add. StoryMap JS can integrate media from Twitter, YouTube, Google Maps, Wikipedia, SoundCloud, etc. The result is great.

Timeline. A creator of timelines

Timeline Js is a tool that allows you to create timelines or chronological friezes very easily. It is part of the list of best tools to create chronological friezes which I have published here. And it is deserved. As Storyline the starting point must be a spreadsheet made with the spreadsheet built into Google. Timeline is regularly used by major international media. Once you have created your frieze, you can share it or insert it into a website.

These six tools from Northwestern University Knight Lab, which help to get started in multimedia storytelling, are free and free. Essentials in your digital education toolkit.