Enriching Instruction through Digital Stories in the K-12 Classroom

A personal story that involves a personal change or realization Personal Reflection Stories Memorials Events in our lives Places in our lives Our jobs Recovery Stories Love Stories Discovery Short Stories Myths Sample My Mama Almost 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? Biographies Book reports How-to directions

How can you as a teacher use storytelling and digital media in content areas in your classroom? Summary Reports Book reports How-to directions Biographies

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.

Persuasion 1.Advertisements 2.Describe/conclude 3.Analyze/conclude 4.Analyze/persuade 5.Compare/contrast 6.Cause/effect Road Taken for Peace Road Taken for Peace

That frontier will be largely dominated by digital storytelling. Teachers are more important than ever

7 Elements 1(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 Started What do you need to be a digital storyteller 1.Hardware 2.Software –PhotoStory Movie Maker Adobe Premiere Elements, Audacity 3.Digital camera 4.Voice recorder 5.Scanner 6.Microphone USB 7.Video camera

Camera

Video Mistakes Common Video Shooting Mistakes from Robert ScobleCommon 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 CounselUniv. 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 FlickrFlickr More fun with Flickr Even more fun

Priceless / / 10 pictures from flickr, list 3 price, and a statement why it is priceless Demonstrate how to save