“The world is but a canvas to the imagination.” — Henry David Thoreau
In today’s world digital media are often combined with the written word to communicate themes and ideas in interesting new ways. In Mr. Warembourg’s 10th grade English class students experimented with some of the possibilities in a digital storytelling project.
Mr. Warembourg and I began with these standards as a starting point for discussions around instructional strategies to integrate digital media into students’ writing.
Students were invited to work individually or in pairs on their project for several class periods. After the first day, Mr. Warembourg and I decided that this project presented an excellent opportunity to discuss good digital citizenship principles as a way to provide guidance for appropriate practices for using images from the web. Here is a link to the presentation we used to guide a conversation around topics such as copyright, fair use, and attribution. I also demonstrated for students how to use Google Advanced Search to filter for images that copyright holders have granted permission to reuse.
As the projects neared completion, the class decided that it would be interesting to experiment with publishing their work in the school using QR codes. The steps were posted in the notes Google Doc and a wall was created in the classroom with QR codes that could be scanned using a mobile device.
In today’s world digital media are often combined with the written word to communicate themes and ideas in interesting new ways. In Mr. Warembourg’s 10th grade English class students experimented with some of the possibilities in a digital storytelling project.
Mr. Warembourg and I began with these standards as a starting point for discussions around instructional strategies to integrate digital media into students’ writing.
W6 Use technology to produce writing products.
SL 1c-d Incorporate others in discussions; respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives.
SL 2 Integrate multiple sources of information in diverse media.
SL 5 Use digital media.
The students had a number of written works in their portfolios from which to choose as a basis for their project. Mr. Warembourg and I decided to demonstrate three digital storytelling tools for them to choose from, and to provide them with a list of 50 others in case the tools we demonstrated didn’t meet their needs. We shared the demonstration notes and other parts of the project with students using a Google Doc. Most of the students opted to use Animoto, although a few did choose to use Google Presentation, ToonDoo, and StoryBird.
Students were invited to work individually or in pairs on their project for several class periods. After the first day, Mr. Warembourg and I decided that this project presented an excellent opportunity to discuss good digital citizenship principles as a way to provide guidance for appropriate practices for using images from the web. Here is a link to the presentation we used to guide a conversation around topics such as copyright, fair use, and attribution. I also demonstrated for students how to use Google Advanced Search to filter for images that copyright holders have granted permission to reuse.
As the projects neared completion, the class decided that it would be interesting to experiment with publishing their work in the school using QR codes. The steps were posted in the notes Google Doc and a wall was created in the classroom with QR codes that could be scanned using a mobile device.
Most student didn’t have any experience with QR codes so this was a nice way for them to see how easy it is to create and use them as a way to share their work with mobile device users. Student also published their work on Edmodo for their classmates to see and comment on.
Mr. Warembourg did some experimenting of his own by using Storybird to illustrate this story that his father had written for him when he was a child.
In addition, students were asked to reflect on the project and what they learned. Here are some examples of their reflections.
Overall Mr. Warembourg and I felt that this was an effective way to provide students with an opportunity to experiment with using digital media to communicate ideas, information and stories. Students had numerous opportunities to learn 21st century skills such as communication, collaboration, creativity and digital literacy in ways that are aligned with standards. In addition, through choice in storytelling tools, choice of written work, and choice in publishing method students were given opportunities to be active partners in their own learning.
Well done!
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