John Long, technology program specialist at Florida's Palm Beach County School District, has put up impressive numbers over the years. He provides training and support for the district's 104 elementary schools. Long has also presented at 20 conferences and helped launch a district technology conference that today attracts 2,000 participants--a 125% increase from when it first launched a decade ago. Of all of Long's professional achievements, he is perhaps best known for his digital storytelling academy. In 2002, he formed the MOD (Multimedia on Demand) Squad, an enthusiastic group of tech-forward educators. The MOD Squad got to work training 50 teachers in the district to compose multimedia stories and to teach their students to do the same. This article describes digital storytelling which merges a personal story with video, still-frame imagery, music, and voice to create a personal multimedia story. Its benefits in the classroom are multifold. Students learn to write differently and more effectively. They learn new visual literacy skills, new software skills, and learn to develop voice, a voice which is amplified by the inclusion of multimedia. The result is a potentially compelling digital product, much different and beyond the initial piece of "analog" writing.