Digital stories are a great way to connect with your students while simultaneously allowing them to work with new technologies and have their voice herd. I have used digital stories in my classroom for the past two years with great success. The culminating project we complete is a me story. A me story is basically a biography of the student which tells where the student comes from, where they are now and where they are headed in the future. I have found that the most interesting topic for my high school students is themselves and the me story allows them to study and present their favorite topic to the class. With the me story project in full swing I have decided to add another digital storytelling assignment to my curriculum.
The new digital story telling assignment will consist of the students researching a historical figure and presenting on how that figure inspires them as well as the similarities and differences between the historical figure and the students. The students will also explain a personal connection that they share with the teachings or actions of the particular historical figure. This assignment would fit in perfectly with by 10th grade US History curriculum.
The students would create their digital story using free photo story software and I would allow some of my more advanced students to use Windows Movie Maker. In order to facilitate this project I would recommend a few websites to get the students started and allow them to integrate sites of their own once they became more comfortable with the digital story telling assignment. In addition, I would create a digital story of my own to use as an example so the students could get an idea of what was expected of them. I find that a good example is often more effective than two hours of explanation.
I have listed some of the initial sites I would have my students research below
Photostory tutorial
Biography on many famous United States figures
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
The History of Storytelling
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Monday, October 10, 2011
Take a picture or record your screen for less than the price of a can of beans.
How many times have you wanted to take a picture or record live action from your computer screen? If your answer is all the time, then I have your solution, Jing. Yes that’s right I said the answer to your question is Jing. Jing allows you to take instant screen shots or short videos directly from your computer screen. In addition, Jing also allows you to label and alter the screen shots before you save them to your computer.
As a teacher I use Jing almost every day. For example, I take screen shots of students’ assignments, comment on the assignment and email the graded and commented assignment back to the student. Jing is also great for communicating with faculty and administrators. I do not know how many times I have used Jing to help a faculty member solve a computer problem using Jing. Imagine being able to take a picture of your computer screen with an arrow and text pointing to the fix of a problem.
Jing can also be used to create short videos with sound, which I find to make great anticipatory sets when the day begins. The best part of all is that Jing is totally FREE! Techsmith, the company that owns Jing does allow free users to upgrade for additional features and recording time, but I find the free version is more than sufficient for my use. Try Jing and you will prove to yourself all over again that a picture is truly worth a thousand words.
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