Digital Storytelling - What would I do in my school?

The project based learning initiative that I would like to implement at my school is the training and utilization of moviemaker. One primary reason is because it is already installed on all of the teachers’ and school’s computers. Therefore, this initiative could be accomplished at very little cost to the school or stakeholders. This is a tool that is readily available, but most teachers have never used it before, so they just ignore it. I think that if I presented them a demonstration on how easy both the teachers and students could implement its use, we could get many teachers on board.

Another reason is the fact that it is very user friendly – high school students would not have any problem mastering its use. Students are bored with PowerPoint presentations, and as the state emphasizes NBI (needs based instruction), this is a tool that could be very useful. Not only would it be teaching technology skills to prepare students for the future, it also would provide kinesthetic, visual, and auditory learners the learning style they require. Students could use this for journaling, presentations, group projects and class “discussions.” Once they become proficient, teachers could create interesting multimedia presentations in almost the same amount of time that it would take to write their notes for a lecture. Realistically speaking, teachers complain about students being apathetic and not interested in their classes. Well, here is one way for teachers to get their students interested, paying attention and learning in all subject areas.

Emerging Technology That Supprts E-Learning

There is a tremendous amount of technology available that supports e-learning
For the classroom activity that I would like to implement, I have chosen the class wiki. The project design that I think would be good to model the project after is Sylvia Chard’s flexible framework. Flexible framework is a guide for project designs that emphasizes allowing the “students’ interests and curiosity drive the learning experience” (Boss & Krauss, 2007).If implemented, the class wiki would provide the students with opportunities to utilize technology, have discussions that facilitate reflection and critical thinking skills, and to delve as deeply as they would like into the material.

The class wiki could serve several purposes in the language arts classroom. First, a portion of the wiki could be dedicated to an on-line “Socratic circle” that allows the students to post questions that they have about the required texts and respond to each others‘ questions. The wiki could also be used as a continuous blog for the teacher to initiate topic-specific class discussions for the students to contribute to. It could also be used as a place for students to post samples for other students to critique and proof. Finally, there could be a section of the wiki dedicated to creative posts for students to share their writing with each other.

If the above activities are implemented using flexible framework, this will provide students to participate as little (just required reading) or as much as they want to. They can use the creative portion toshare poetry, song lyrics and creative writing, while the student Socratic circle will provide opportunities for student directed discussions. There is the added benefit that the students can access the wiki at school and home.

Windows Movie Maker and Digital Story Telling

Digital Storytelling -Technology That Supports Creativity and Production
Digital storytelling is an interesting teaching tool that, like Comic Life, offers unlimited possibilities for the teachers and students. Ohler’s explanation of what teachers can do to implement digital storytelling provides an overview of the different ways it can be used. He emphasizes that teachers must first decide the product they are expecting the students to produce by “articulating project expectations” (p.9). He also points out that teachers should decide whether the project outcome should include the audience actively or passively viewing and participating (p.25). There are many applications for this tool. Teachers can have students use it to demonstrate comprehension skills, writing skills, and for project creation. It provides students the opportunity to utilize technology, learn new skills and develop their critical thinking skills.

EDTech Article "How To Use Comic Life in the Classroom by Charle Thacker

"How to Use Comic Life in the Classroom"
Charles Thacker
Thursday, March 8, 2007

MacInstruct.com,TechEd - Technology in Education



There's a long history of comics in the classroom, and the list of references at the end of this article is a great starting point for learning about this concept. While there's still resistance to this medium being used in education - whether by staff or students - there is also a growing movement to use every valuable tool available. Comics have some great uses in the classroom and in a variety of curricula. From pre-readers to high school students, from English to ESL to Science and Math, comics can help students analyze, synthesize and absorb content that may be more difficult when presented in only one way.



Why Comics in the Classroom?
For the pre-reader, a comic can be purely graphical in nature and help provide practice with sequencing as well as concrete to abstract transitions using illustrations instead of written words. The written component of a comic can be introduced when the early readers are ready to connect words with images. Comics can help early readers or readers with language acquisition problems by providing visual clues to the context of the narrative.

For more advanced readers, comics can contain all the complexity of 'normal' written material which the student must decode and comprehend, such as puns, alliteration, metaphors, symbolism, point of view, context, inference, and narrative structures. A comic can also be a stepping-stone to more complex and traditional written work. A single pane in a comic can represent paragraphs worth of written material in a manner that is enjoyable and effective for the early or challenged reader.

Comics also have the ability to meet the needs of students in a variety of learning styles. Tom Hart illustrates how comics address many of Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences in this short article. I strongly recommend that you read through the articles in the reference section below as many others have covered the concept of comics in education in far more detail than I do here.



Using Comic Life to Facilitate Student Participation
With the time educators have for research and professional reading becoming increasingly scarce, I know that a quick 'What can I do with this tomorrow in class?' concept must be presented. For this, I will select an example (the book report) that is simple and quick to implement, although there are far more effective uses of comics in the classroom.

We have staff using Comic Life to facilitate student participation in assignments that traditionally would have been written assignments with little to no imagery included. The book report is a classic example of how Comic Life can breath new life into an old assignment. Often dreaded by students (including myself), the book report is a staple of the classroom for several reasons. First, it provides a way to evaluate whether or not a student has read the assigned material. It also allows a student to show how they synthesize and analyze information contained in written material. Depending on the course requiring the report, this may include character and plot analysis, thematic content, purpose, story development, historical reference, and personal evaluation or judgment.

The book reports we often see in classes are, well, boring. Comic Life can help students create reports that are interesting to themselves and the class - reports that are fun to create and share. The paneled interface of a comic lends itself to breaking larger concepts into smaller, easily digested ideas that can be strung together in a coherent and entertaining way. Creating the imagery used in the comic can draw a student into the story or character in a way that a written report simply can’t.

Use Comic Life to help break down complex ideas and to create entertaining content for material that can sometimes be dull. Here are some assignment ideas that lend themselves to the use of Comic Life:

Timelines (history, events, sequences)
Historical figures (history of, life of)
Instructions (step by step, details, illustrations, easy to follow)
Dialogue punctuation
Character analysis
Plot analysis
Storytelling
Pre-Writing Tool
Post-Reading Tool
Teaching Onomatopoeias
…and on and on



What is Comic Life?
Comic Life is an award winning application for creating not just comics (obviously), but also annotated images, dynamic photo albums, greeting cards, scrap books, story books, and instruction guides and brochures. In the classroom, it is an excellent tool for creating reports of almost any kind. Comic Life allows you to create page layouts with boxes for images and text. Styles can be applied to create just about any type of ‘feel’ for your document. Captions can be created with tails in order to have thought balloons, speech boxes or just additional annotations. Filters are available to turn your digital images into a variety of hand drawn looking graphics to enhance the comic appearance of your work.

Comic Life

Your ComicLife is so appropriate for high school and I really like the ways you can use to inspire the students. Having them write in modern day language would be great! You did a very good job. I enjoyed it.