Enriching Instruction through Digital Stories in the K-12 Classroom

A personal story that involves a personal

change or realization Personal Reflection Stories

MemorialsEvents in our livesPlaces in our livesOur jobsRecovery StoriesLove StoriesDiscoveryShort StoriesMyths

SampleMy MamaAlmost Paradise• A Dog’s Tale• Fox Finds a Friend

An academic or "unit of instruction" story

• Science and math

How can you as a teacher use storytelling and

digital media in content areas in your classroom? BiographiesBook reportsHow-to directions

How can you as a teacher use storytelling and

digital media in content areas in your classroom? Summary ReportsBook reportsHow-to directionsBiographies

Stories vs. reports - engagement vs. critical

thinking

• Inspirational stories + critical thinking

• persuasive power of the story form• reflection, problem solving and

reasoned thinking • combination of story form and

analytical report.

Persuasion1. Advertisements 2. Describe/conclude3. Analyze/conclude4. Analyze/persuade5. Compare/contrast6. Cause/effect

Road Taken for Peace

That frontier will be largely dominated by digital storytelling.

• Teachers are more important than ever

7 Elements1(A Point) of view• Stories are told to make a point• All stories are personal• Use first-person• first-person voice is authoritative,

seemingly neutral

2. Dramatic Question• Don’t just make a point • Set up a question in the beginning

3. Emotional Content• Requires plain old-fashioned common

sense and maturity• Exploring emotional material is a

personal decision.

4.Gift of Voice• our voice is a great gift • The voice can show strength and

weakness • Try not to read, but talk

5.The Power of the Soundtrack• Ipod generation• Stirs emotions• Be careful with lyrical music• Instrumental is best• Copyright

6. Be economical• Don’t go overboard on materials• effectively illustrated with a small

number of images and video

• 7. Pacing• move along generally at an even

pace, • starts and stops, pauses, and

quickly spurted phrases

Tools

• Websites-Public Domain• Images• Software• Video • Music• Your voice

Why is it a good tool for teachers?

• Appeal to the diverse learning styles of the students by using Digital Storytelling as a presentation media

• Generate interest, attention and motivation for the "digital generation" kids in our classrooms.

• Capitalize on the creative talents of your own students as they begin to research and tell stories of their own.

 

Why is it a good tool for students?

• Learn to use the Internet to research rich, deep content while analyzing and synthesizing a wide range of content.

• Develop communications skills by learning to ask questions, express opinions, construct narratives and write for an audience.

• Increase computer skills using software that combines a variety of multimedia  including: text, still images, audio and video

    

Getting StartedWhat do you need to be a digital storyteller1. Hardware2. Software –PhotoStory Movie Maker Adobe

Premiere Elements, Audacity3. Digital camera4. Voice recorder5. Scanner6. Microphone USB7. Video camera

Camera

Video Mistakes• Common Video Shooting Mistakes

from Robert Scoble

Power of music in your digital story

• A Christmas Gory• Bottom line: Music manipulates and

can overtake a story if over used or over played. Make sure your music supplements your story, and not the other way around. When it is the other way around, you have a music video.

Student Activity• Have them do a quick write following each

video about what kind of movie they think they are watching, what they think the story line might be and how they feel toward the young man in the movie. You need to play each movie to get the full effect. They are only 30 seconds long. I suggest you play the movie without any sound at all before playing all three sequences with sound.

• Movie Sequence #1 • Movie Sequence #2 • Movie Sequence #3

A Few Words about Copyright

Common Sense Copyright -respect for others' property

1. Citation 2. Permission 3. Compensation

A Few Words about Copyright

If your stories are published on the Web, list a disclaimer. Work done for educational use is under the fair use protection of existing copyright law.

Four Factor Fair Use Test

1. What is the character of the use?

2. What is the nature of the work to be used?

3. How much of the work will you use?

4. If this kind of use were widespread, what effect would it have on the market for the original?

University of Texas's site devoted to this topic

Teach Act• Music, video, animation: Students can use

10% or 30 seconds of songs, movies and other works, whichever is shorter.

• Words: Students can use 10% or up to 1000 words from a text, whichever is shorter.

• Illustrations, photos, graphics: This is more vague. Students can use no more than 5 images from one artist; they can use 10% or 15 works from a collection, whichever is smaller.

Resources• Univ. of Texas, Office of General

Counsel • Copyright Kids • Learning & Leading with

Technology • Copyright Condensed

Use the Creative Commons

(creativecommons.org).

• an alternative form of copyright licensing that gives creative content developers and consumers options not available under the traditional copyright system.

• Rather than "all rights reserved," developers can select from a range of permission options.

Homework

Discover Flickr

More fun with Flickr

Even more fun

Priceless• http://www.priceless.com/priceless

tv/

• 10 pictures from flickr, list 3 price, and a statement why it is priceless

• Demonstrate how to save