Teaching with Technology

Digital Stories

A great application of technology in the classroom is the use of digital stories.  A digital story is a series of still images set to a narrative story recording. 

In Constructing Digital Stories, Sara Kajder, Glen Bull, and Susan Albaugh lay out an organized road map for implementing digital stories with students.  Students should first write a concise script.  The script should be less than a page in length, which requires the students to be parsimonious and only focus on essential information.  The next step is to plan the storyboard. In this step images are prepared (a dozen or so) to relay the main ideas of the stories.  These images can be downloaded clips, files, or videos.  They can be photographs or images prepared by the student.  Each image has a caption highlight its focus.  Student?s then participate in a small group meeting called a story circle where they elicit feedback from other students.  Next, a video editior such as imovie or Movie Maker is used to sequence the images.  Students then record a narrative track.  Students record each line of their script in a different file.  This allows for students to be able to control the pacing of the track with the images.  Finally students dress up their digital stories with special effects, transitions, and a musical soundtrack.  This last step can be omitted if time is an issue, but allowing students this time for perfecting and fine tuning their digital story can increase focus and ownership. 

Kajder et al. suggest making the scripts and storyboards a prerequisite for using the computer.  You don?t want students to waste time at the computer.  As with all computer based projects, students should save their work often. 

I see digital stories as having unlimited possibilities in the K-12 classroom.  One use would be to have 3^rd and 4^th graders use it in preparation for the state writing assessment.  By using digital stories students can focus in on skills such as sequencing of events, main ideas, problems/solutions and transitions.  Obviously since the goal of a digital story is to be succinct, this would not be the best method for teaching elaboration.  But students, could watch a digital story as a class, and then use it as a springboard for writing a personal narrative.  It would be very interested to hear how different students took the same ?skeleton? and created a story.  This would then allow the students to focus on the different ways a story can be elaborated. 

I also think digital stories would be an excellent tool for self reflection.  If the students were participating in a more complex project, like putting on a class play, a digital story could be constructed to document the process allowing students an opportunity to reflect on the learning that has taken place.  This could be used as a culminating project as well, students could take photos from the entire year and set them to story as a way to sum up their year.  This could be shared with parents at the final parents night, as well as with the next group of kids coming up. 

Sites of Interest?

A History of Digital Storytelling

        www.storycenter.org/movies

Resources for Stories

        www.creativecommons.org

Digital Stories by students and teachers

        www.digitalstories.org/

More examples

        www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/learnshops/digital/examples.php