Myeong-Hwa Cha MSEd Candidate Course 743 University of New England Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: The integration of writing & technology In Science

My second grade students made an attempt to create their first digital story of the life cycle of a butterfly in science class. What is Digital Storytelling? Click and listen to their work

Benefits of Digital Storytelling √ Involves traditional reading and writing processes and skills √ Extends traditional writing into a digital presentation with voice-overs enabling students to celebrate their accomplishments √ Provides an opportunity to critique their own, as well as peer, reading and writing by sharing and listening to their products. √ Can be integrated across the curriculum.

√ Includes technological skill building, such as researching information, saving files, importing music and pictures, cropping images, and recording voice-overs. √ Simple enough for young students and an interesting way to promote self-learning at home with minimal help – assistance maybe needed to download a program, upload pictures from a camera, or scan own illustrations. Benefits of Digital Storytelling continued...

√ Builds a learning community by sharing tasks with peers as a group project. √ Motivates reluctant students to be involved in writing. √ Differentiates classroom instruction that meets student diversity. √ Multiplies the sense of achievement through the click of a mouse by sharing with families or friends who are away.

Integrating science and writing using the digital stories

Learning Objectives – science & writing Students will be able to... √ investigate animal life cycles through stories, videos and discussions. √ demonstrate their understanding of animal life cycles through writing and illustrations. √ create a life-cycle storyboard using life cycle sequence cards. √ name and describe the characteristics of each stage of an animals life cycle. √ write sentences to explain each stage of the life cycle.

Learning Objectives – technological skills Students will be able to... √ collect and organize data. √ utilize technology to research information, music, and illustrations. √ create a narrative digital story using Microsoft Photo Story 3 of a life cycle of a particular animal using illustrations and voice-overs to demonstrate understanding. √ demonstrate creating a digital story. √ Evaluate and critique own and peer work.

Learning Activities... √ Introduce and discuss the stages of the life cycle of humans. √ Students and/or the teacher bring milestone pictures and share stories of when students were younger. √ Teacher models autobiographical illustrations and writing. √ Students write sentences describing stages in their lives. Whole class discussion - Story Reading & Writing: Love You Forever by Robert Munsch introduces the human life cycle. (

Learning Activities continued... Story & Documentary Review: Read - The Very Hungry Caterpillar -Dan’s Pet Watch -Frog Life Cycle video ( youtube.com/watch?v= Hkyv sRS6w&feature=related) √ Students demonstrate understanding using a Carroll diagram to compare and contrast the characteristics and stages of various life cycles in nature. √ Students create a word wall vocabulary for spelling references, such as pupa, tadpole, or froglet.

Small Group Activity (Homogeneous group) – Life Cycle Sequence Cards √ Teacher provides Life Cycle Sequence Cards (LCSC) for other animals. √ Students choose an animal of their choice. √ Cut, color, illustrate, order, and paste LCSC into a descriptive storyboard. Learning Activities continued... √ Students brainstorm descriptive sentences to present Life stage storyboard to the whole class using the ordinal numbers and science vocabulary, such as first, second, pupa or caterpillar.

Learning Activities continues... Learning Activities continues... Whole class Activity - Shared Writing √ Teacher displays pictures of the plant life cycle and elicits descriptions from the students for each stage. √ Teacher models descriptive sentence building by linking words and summarizing descriptions given by students. √ Teacher incorporates key vocabulary from word wall in descriptions.

Individual & Group Writing √ Students choose a life cycle stage to describe in writing. Students choose to work individually, with a partner, or as a group. Learning Activities continues... Group Role Play √ Students prepare storyboards using their LCSC and presents a group role play. √ Each child in the group represents one stage of the life cycle and narrates the group writing about the particular stage. For example, “Hi, I’m a small frog egg. I live in water with many of my brothers and sisters”.

Whole Class Activity - Write a song and sing!!! √ Students identify key vocabulary for each stage of the life cycle. √ Teacher suggests familiar nursery rhymes, class songs, or traditional songs of the U.A.E. √ The class looks for rhyming words. √ Sing and have fun! Learning Activities continues...

Presenting one of the life cycle songs A Magical Butterfly (to the tune of “If You Are Happy”) It’s an egg that’s white and small. It’s a caterpillar who can crawl. A pupa hides away busy working night and day becoming a beautiful butterfly that flies away! Click and Listen!

IT steps for digital storytelling! 1. Teacher Demonstration Teacher demonstrates how to use Photo Story 3 by creating a digital story with the whole class. Students can participate within a group or individually. 2. Collecting Images (online research if search engine is child-proof): Students choose and collect images from pre-saved pictures, and import them into Photo Story 3. Student illustrations can be utilized by scanning or taking photos with a digital camera and uploading them. 3. Editing images: simple editing such as cropping or rotating photos.

4. Storyboarding & Voice Recording: Organize stories into sections that will accompany the selected images, and record the students’ narration. Editing can be done as many times as needed. 5. Selecting music: Students can use music that the computer already has or create music from the Photo Story 3 that matches the mood of the story, and save it. 6. Peer or Self Critique: Following presentations, student self/peer evaluations to generate feedback. Feedback should be focused on the process and activities, as well as final projects. ex) Which activity did you enjoy the most? Which task did your group find the most difficult? Was the narration clear or loud enough? Was the narration fluent? 7. Save and celebrate! Save the final products onto personal flash drives to share and celebrate! IT steps for digital storytelling continues...

Evaluation 1. Participation and effort: Was the student actively involved in group work and discussions? Were interpersonal and group skills observable? Did the student complete the given task in the group? 2. Creativity (writing & images) 3. Formal and informal evaluation: Does the student demonstrate understanding of the subject content? Is the writing coherent? Does the writing exhibit correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation? 4. Formal assessment of the digital story project using Miller’s Digital Story rubric (p.87)

References Bieniek, D. (1996) Animal Friends-Projects and Activities for Grades K-3. Troll Early Learning Activities Carle, Eric (1969) The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Putnam/Philomel Miller, Lisa C. (2010) Make Me a Story – Teaching Writing Through Digital Storytelling. Stenhouse Publishers Moving Into English Grade 1. (2002)Harcourt School Publishers Munsch, Robert (1986) Love You Forever, Firefly Books Routman, R. (2005) Writing Essentials: Rasising Expectations and Results While Simplifying Teaching. Heinemann Portsmouth, NH Frog’s Life Cycle - Love You For Ever by Robert Munsch - ES-fp2fdz Robert Munsch’s Official Site Images from Google Image search