This week’s assignment was to read Chapter 6 from our text (Shelly, Gunter and Gunter).
Review a host of Website resources for Digital Story telling and dream a bit on how I could integrate technology into my curriculum and have my students use digital story telling in their assignments.
I teach Allied Health Courses in Vocational Occupations at the college level. I am constantly looking for additional resources for my students. The current courses I am teaching are Anatomy and Physiology, Medical Terminology and Medisoft. The publishers offer very little resources in addition to the textbooks.
One of the requirements in my classes is to have the students do a research project on a disease of their choice or a current event that relates to their class. I require the research to be at least five pages long. They are also required to present their work to the class. I require them to use some type of visual aids as well. Thinking about the past two weeks of assignments and my current curriculum, I am now feeling a bit more confident that digital story telling would benefit my students. Most of the students are non-traditional, they are on average 30 plus in age and most are women. Getting them to use technology that is computer based has been a bit of a struggle, however since learning about digital storyboards, I think these students could have a better learning experience and have fun at the same time. I am a strong believer that learning should be fun and exciting.
I am excited about the up coming project for this class, which will be creating a Wikispace. Dreaming a bit how I would set this up using my current curriculum and incorporate Digital Story telling.
A project that I would have my students do is curriculum based and the students would a choice of using different media:
I would offer a Web linked tutorial section for different media sources.
· Digital Storytelling: A Tutorial in 10 Easy Steps
- Video Story Telling Basics Storytelling
- Storytelling Ideas
- PowerPoint
- PowerPoint presentation using Slideshare
My classes are health related so the digital story telling would need to be a simple project to complete.
I see that you may have a more difficult time then I will when integrating this project into your class. As I’m sure that it will take much more planning for you then someone who teaches a daily class like me who teaches fifth graders. I can see how you must be frustrated with the lack of resources that the publisher offers. Not until this year has the publishers been as interactive or even given teachers the ability to use the Internet as a tool. As this takes some explaining, this year OCPS adopted a new Math series that allows teachers to use the computer to integrate the textbooks with computer instruction. Also as an addition we can put the textbook online for students to view their books, and homework online. This has also been made available for the text books for Science and Social Studies. I’m sure with this starting to surface other publishers will follow.
ReplyDeleteI can see your difficulties that you may have with your class demographics, but with good modeling I’m sure you’ll overcome it. In any case, the students should be learning about the technology available. I’m sure many of them have children, and with what I said about what publishers are doing and the timeframe for public school to have 50% of their budget ear tagged for digital books, we all must learn how to adapt to this breakneck speed of which technology is moving. I liked how you specified your objective for the project and with good planning there will come great results. I feel that you gave a wide variety of choice, and even though there may some bellyaching because of having to use an unfamiliar presentation style, your students will learn much more than just your core curriculum, that is how to use technology in the classroom.
I see that you may have a more difficult time then I will when integrating this project into your class. As I’m sure that it will take much more planning for you then someone who teaches a daily class like me who teaches fifth graders. I can see how you must be frustrated with the lack of resources that the publisher offers. Not until this year has the publishers been as interactive or even given teachers the ability to use the Internet as a tool. As this takes some explaining, this year OCPS adopted a new Math series that allows teachers to use the computer to integrate the textbooks with computer instruction. Also as an addition we can put the textbook online for students to view their books, and homework online. This has also been made available for the text books for Science and Social Studies. I’m sure with this starting to surface other publishers will follow.
ReplyDeleteI can see your difficulties that you may have with your class demographics, but with good modeling I’m sure you’ll overcome it. In any case, the students should be learning about the technology available. I’m sure many of them have children, and with what I said about what publishers are doing and the timeframe for public school to have 50% of their budget ear tagged for digital books, we all must learn how to adapt to this breakneck speed of which technology is moving. I liked how you specified your objective for the project and with good planning there will come great results. I feel that you gave a wide variety of choice, and even though there may some bellyaching because of having to use an unfamiliar presentation style, your students will learn much more than just your core curriculum, that is how to use technology in the classroom.
Wow, I can see how you can really be challenged as you try to use digital storytelling as part of your instruction. It's probably difficult for many of the students to make the adjustment from writing a paper to creating a digital story. I wonder, though how many of them would choose the digital story for your next assignment if they had the choice. That's hard to say.
ReplyDeleteIn undergraduate classes as an education major I remember (and it was pretty recent) there were several students who reluctantly completed a digital story, but said they didn't envision them using it in their classrooms. I was a little disappointed in hearing that from education major, but you know I think that change from old habits can be hard for anyone. At least you are exposing them to something different and then they can decide for themselves what they think about it.
I commend you on your efforts!