Monday, November 13, 2017

Creating Digital Stories

"I know only one thing about the technologies that await us in the future.
We will find ways to tell stories with them."
Quote from Jason Ohler

The Prezi created by Kevin Hodgson entitled "Digital Storytelling and the Common Core" discuss the importance of how storytelling is the mode of presenting and encouraging learning, not the education.  Kevin states the following 4 important ingredients to successful digital storytelling.

What is Digital Storytelling?
1. it contains images, narration, and music; sometimes contains motion
2. storyboarding
3. video project
4. encourages exploration of an IDEA with technology

Potential Ideas for Digital Storytelling
Video Book Trailers
Media Companion to Narrative Writing
Persuasive "How To" Video Projects
Family History Projects
Tell the Story of a Community

How does digital storytelling connect to the standards within the writing curriculum and technology
When considering how to incorporate digital storytelling into the writing curriculum, the teacher needs to consider the purpose of the writing and the product that students need to produce to show their knowledge.  For this lesson, I tried to determine how you could incorporate digital storytelling into the social studies curriculum.
Social Studies and Digital Storytelling
Students could create digital stories that tell the life of a historical person, through images and writing.  First students would need to use technology to research historical artifacts about the person or event, including images.  Students would then need to create a written storyboard of the timeline of the person's life or the event.  The student would need to then use a digital storytelling application to create the story. Students could create digital timelines to tell the sequence of a historical event or the life of a historical person.  Christopher Pappas published a list of the Top 10 Free Timeline Creation Tools for Teachers.  I explored many of the websites but found Sutori.com to be the best and easiest for students to use.  I created the following timeline example of my daughter's life using Sutori.



Sutori was easy to use to create a timeline. It is linked with Google Classroom, which is important to me since my school uses Google Classroom as our LMS.  This application is easy to use for students to create timelines to tell the digital story of a person or event.

Positives of Sutori
"How To Use" video
Collaboration
Connects with Google Classroom
Teacher Tools
Easy to use and navigate
Ability to share and print

I also consider the use of digital storytelling in writing for students to create books.  Below is an example of a social studies book that explores different locations a new "flat frienx" visits including the modes of travel.

Flat Friend Book created using StoryJumper.com


Story Jumper is a digital storytelling application that allows students to create digital books.  The website allows students to create blank books or use tutorials to walk through creating a specific type of book.  Some of the different types of books I saw and explored included: About Me, Historical Biographies, Fictional, or any other type of writing students create.  The program allows students to select from a blank book or a template.  I used the Flat Friend template, this was a great program and by far my favorite digital storytelling application I have explored.

After selecting the template Flat Friend, I was walked through the process of creating my book the program gave step by step directions including what to write about and how to add images and my voice. Below I have listed a few of the positives for this program.

Positives of Story Jumper
"How To Use" video after selecting a book creation
When creating a flat friend book, it included videos of the locations visited by the friend
Collaborative Program
Easy to follow directions
Many different images
Ability to add music and voice





PA Writing Standards that Address the use of Technology

CC.1.4.6.U - Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of three pages in a single sitting

CC.1.4.6.V Conduct short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources and refocusing the inquiry when appropriate.

CC.1.4.6.W Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources.

CC.1.5.6.F Include multimedia components and visual displays in presentations to clarify information.







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