While at first I thought the burden of the time and effort it would take to make a digital story would not be worth it, after completing a digital story, I definitely see many benefits. I decided to use a poem I wrote for my digital story. This poem is about my life, so I have ample picture support to add to the poem. I now see how my poem has really come to life through digital storytelling. A poem that I have seen in my portfolio for a while on paper now is accompanied by pictures, music, and narration. What a powerful tool that would be in the classroom.
I could use digital storytelling in my classroom during a poetry unit similar to the way I did the project myself. I would have the students pic an event in their life and write a poem about it. Then, I would have the students collect photos from their house about the event. With upper elementary grades, the software was so easy to use that I don't forsee major issues in that area. The students would be able to experience their poem "coming to life" just as I did.
Digital storytelling could also be used for the "Star student of the week." When it was a student's turn to be the Star student, I would have them bring in a file of pictures of their favorite things, their family, and anything important to them. Instead of doing a "me bag," the students could play their digital story for the class. The students would then receive individual instruction on the software and their classmates would view an "all about me" video.
Students could use digital storytelling for many different projects as well. Sometimes students are not comfortable getting up in front of the entire class and presenting a project. Digital storytelling provides a way for them to document their work and even narrate their work without having a large audience. When the story is finished, they can show the class their final video and feel more comfortable about the quality of their presentation.
Digital Storytelling can be adapted in many different ways to fit the needs of students as well as provide a way to assess student learning. This type of alternative assessment could be beneficial to many students in your classroom. The students also learn 21st century skills by experimenting with the digital storytelling software. Although digital storytelling does take time to learn and create a meaningful project, I see far more pros than cons for bringing it into the classroom.
As a future teacher of English/Language Arts, I hadn't even considered using poetry for digital storytelling! Brava! I love this idea because poetry can be difficult for some students who may struggle with abstract concepts. I can see this working well for ELL students because they could choose their own images to represent the ideas they encounter in poems. To introduce the concept of digital storytelling, students could do a get-to-know-you activity by producing a short piece about themselves that they can share. I also like the idea of having digital storytelling as an option for an alternative assignment - depending on how it is differentiated, it could work for a variety of students.
ReplyDeleteIncorporating the use of poetry would be a fantastic accompaniment to digital storytelling. I have a couple of ideas to add onto your already very well articulated thoughts. First, students could all do different digital stories on the same poem or poetry by the same author. Using the same poem would illustrate the different interpretations and personal meanings attached which are so inherent to poetry. Second, students could be given "narration-free" digital poetry and then they would be asked to transcribe the images and audio in a poem. The diversity of products that would result would be something to behold. I can imagine that students would be incredibly proud of what they create.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI hadn't even thought of using poetry with digital storytelling- what a cool idea! This opened a whole new area to digital storytelling for me. I also think that using personal photos would be a great way for students to pull in personal aspects of their lives and share them with their teacher and peers. Photographs are different than random images found on the internet. There's something special about using images of people, events, or places that the students have experienced.
I also like the idea for a digital story replacing an "about me" assignment. It's still an "about me" assignment but adds a new medium of technology.
Thanks for sharing!