Week 4

This week has been a busy week with all the loose ends to tie up for the conclusion of the class. I never realized how many pieces of software and types of hardware/equipment were out there. It's mind boggling, that there could be so many different products to help achieve one task.

Planning a Digital Story

I have been researching storyboard formats and ways to introduce the idea of digital storytelling to my English 9 students. The sheer volume of information out there is mind boggling. I'm really looking forward to doing this project with my class of very reluctant writers. However, the fact that they are reluctant writers makes it even more imperitive that I have "all my ducks in a row," before I begin this project with them. If anyone has found any really user friendly planning sheets, I'd love to see them.

So Much to Process

While trying to process what we've learned over the past week and how I can use it in my classroom, I find that I am overwhelmed with all of the new ideas I am being bombarded with. I'm sure part of it comes from the fact that I was not able to attend class last week, because of my contractual obligation to be at parent/teacher conferences at my school, despite the fact that I made ZERO parent contacts during that time. I feel as though I am really out of the loop in terms of the class and what was covered last week, along with what I should be doing for this week. That being said, I have taken some interesting things from the course work and actually implemented a couple of them in my classes already. One idea I got while looking over the standards for my level. I came up with idea for my students to use a graphic organizer to put together information on the state I assigned to them to research. It was perfect timing because I was looking for a structured way to have students work on this assignment with a substitute teacher, rather than with me. Historically, assignments done with a substitute teacher have usually ended up to be a wash because the directions weren't followed or implemented by the substitute teacher. I am anxious to see if this extra bit of structure with the assignment will help.

Digital Storytelling in My Classroom

I could use digital storytelling in my classes in a variety of ways. In Social Studies I could use it as a new way for students to interact with the information we are studying. In special ed. My students are all visual learners, who require repetition and concrete examples to learn new content. It would be nice to have a new “trick” to use, other than having them create PowerPoint or Google Presentations. They do well retaining information when they are responsible for creating a presentation/project and then teaching about a subject. Digital Storytelling would work well for this.

I would also use digital storytelling in my English classes. This is a great way to have them do the organization, prewriting and planning that they typically get hung up on. All of my students, low level and reluctant writers alike will be able to create something they are proud of and feel okay about sharing with their classmates.