Reading Assignment
June 24, 2008 by writingwithtechnology
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2410 At some time read the article at this site. Use the comment feature to reflect on this article. Do you argee or disagree and why?
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It is exciting to see technology used in the classroom and the kids of Maine are lucky. I have a couple of questions. What class incorporated this digital storytelling, and how were the students evaluated? How long were they given to complete the project, or was it several projects. How much classtime was spent on this activity?
I believe teachers can be very creative when given the chance. It seems there is always a transition between covering what the state wants you to cover (i.e., gle’s, standards, etc.) and implementing the technology to do this in a kid friendly manner.
Learning new ways of doing things, like implementing technology in the classroom is time consuming and challenging. Kids catch on fast and most are confortable with computers and their technology. My hats off for these innovators.
Yes, I agree that DS is a great tool to use with this generation of learners. They are so visually-oriented and tuned in that it’s hard to get them to “tune out” to old-school learning ways (i.e., lecture, pencil/paper, etc.) and many have to power down their brains for that type of learning.
Why not keep their brains powered up so that when they take out their Ipod ear buds and turn off their cell phones they can still keep them engaged? Sure, you may have some text messaging style writing and strange assignment completions (podcasts, blogging, instant messaging, etc.) but if the students are learning AND enjoying it, then the teacher has more than done his/her job IMHO (text message abbreviation for “in my humble opinion”).
A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to experiment with digital storytelling through a Prairie Lands class with Mary Lee. My story was a poem based on “Where I am From”. What resulted was a project that was a tribute to my family complete with pictures from the early 1920’s & 30’s. That project has become a family heirloom that has found its way on to several family member’s computer screens. Had I simply written a poem, there would have been little interest shown. With the marriage of text and pictures, the poem came alive and became something meaningful. That’s the beauty of digital storytelling.
It seems that they have had good results using digital storytelling. Anytime you put technology into the mix it will hook most of your students. I do think that the grant money to provide the students with laptops was critical to the project. If you don’t have enough laptops or computers to go around you could get bogged down. They felt the story was the most important and the technology was second. I almost think that they are equal in importance. Some kids need that technology component to get them interested others would do it anyway. I might try something like this in Biology when we cover the Race for the Double Helix. I would like to see the story from their perspective.
I agree with this article. I think students will enjoy the writing process more using computers. After writing a rough draft they can make revisions without rewriting another copy. I know students hate to rewrite. I do think that you would need to have a laptop for each student.
I think that having the kids do digital storytelling is a highly effective way of getting the kids to write about anything. Having them make a DS over something they just read or something they came up with is good practice for them to just write and write. The more they write, either on pen/paper or on the computer, the better off they are going to be later on. It also will help them when they have to explain something to someone verbally. Enhancing these two skills at any time possible can only be beneficial to the student.
The digital story is amazing, I think it makes your words so much more powerful! it gives people a way into your story, I have created numorous digital stories, my favorite by far has been a poem that I wrote about my children where I added pictures and music, this was piece that taught me that I can write! and then the pictures and music simply enhanced my piece. I have used digital stories with my students by having them create bio poems over artist and then putting them in a slide show with the option of music and or audio. It seems like anytime I can incoorperate technology with art my student dive in and work extremly hard.
I found this article very interesting. I agree that digital storytelling allows students to take ownership in their writing. This allows students to express themselves in their own way. Also, technology might be the hook that gets some student who maybe don’t normally like to write. Being a counselor, I find it hard to incorporate digital storytelling in my curriculum. I plan on working with my business teacher and try to use digital storytelling in my careers unit.
I have to admit, several years ago when Mom started talking about DS, I was skeptical. As a high school teacher, I thought it sounded too elementary level for me and my students. I am now a total convert. I was intrigued by this article and would LOVE to see that many laptops in our area. Kids love merging images and text and are much more willing to revise these kids of pieces, especially if I display them instead of simply grading and filing them. One of my goals this year not only to engage my students, but to make grading more exciting for me, I am going to try to incorporate more music into some of my classroom projects.
Digital storytelling has been something I have considered implementing into one of my computer courses through the integration of movie maker. Student seem to produce higher quality work if ownership is apparent. Combining technology with something they can relate to is a sure win with today’s techno students. They are also writing and don’t even really realize it!
I like the idea of DS. But I always feel the need to rush through something like that. The reason is that I teach Art at a small school and the pressure of completing my own GLEs tends to push everything else aside. I would love to teach a Creative Writing course and do all of these writing projects. I find I have to limit my projects that include writing. The students like the writing projects, but they take a very long time. I always add an Art project to go along with the writing project and I either rush my students on the writing or the art due to time problems. I would love to see a creative writing course added to the curriculum, but I think it would have to be in the summer.