Agenda

Samples to think about as we get started:

Getting to Know the iMovie App

Thank you to my pal @DanielEspejo, fellow poster at Edapps.ca for this video!
http://edapps.ca/2011/11/13-ways-to-use-imovie-in-the-classroom/ 

iMovie Trailers – A Sample

Digital Storytelling Activity Structures

• Digital Stories – Bernajean Porter Digitales.us; Jason Ohler Digital Storytelling Resources
• Book Trailers – Edapps.ca Creating Book Trailers
• Conceptual Retelling – Example – Student-created Science Lab Video Reports
• Interesting Ways to Use Video in the Classroom

 Advice on Digital Storytelling with Students

Underlying Beliefs:

• Learning happens socially and through language
• Expressing ideas through multiple forms of media can enhance and deepen the meaning-making process
• Children benefit from opportunities to share what they know and how they feel in creative ways
• Sharing ideas and understanding in the form of a story helps with memory retention and sense-making
• Technology can offer learning opportunities consistent with a Universal Design for Learning environment:
  • Multiple means of representation (taking in information)
  • Multiple means of expression (sharing back knowledge)
  • Multiple means of engagement (motivation for learning)

Important Considerations:

• What are your educational goals? These types of websites come and go, so understanding your purpose for using these websites and applying those goals to whichever website you use is key.  Connecting images to text, developing writing skills, practicing oral language skills – these are goals which can be applied to new web tools that emerge over time.
• Fun is not enough – keep the academic rigor present in the websites you choose for students.  While there may be ‘free time’ for students to explore sites, there are real opportunities to build knowledge, reflect on learning, and develop skills.
• Break down a larger project into smaller chunks – If you are having students create a multimedia story or digital narrative project, set a specific productivity goal for each student for each block of time you work.  Once students reach that goal for the day, have an alternative activity for the students to do.  In this way, the gap doesn’t widen between faster and slower working students, students have a specific task to focus on, and it will be easier for you as a teacher to keep your project on track.

  

  1 huge task over multiple days is more difficult to manage than several, smaller tasks

• Start with a piece of writing in class – For a digital storytelling or narrative, do as much of the writing components in class on paper as possible (or create the digital text on the computer before the multimedia components).  Very young students often get ‘stuck’ with spelling, and students in general lose themselves in the multimedia aspects of a digital storytelling tool, the text being almost an afterthought.  Bernajean Porter states that students must be ‘meaning makers’ first, then ‘media makers’.  The quality of the work will be higher and students will stay on track more easily.
  
• Consider Jason Ohler’s 80/20 rule (found in http://www.jasonohler.com/pdfs/NewLiteracies-crashCourse-2009.pdf) – That the first 80% of the project takes 20% of the time, and all the fine tuning, editing, and making the movie ‘cinema quality’ (final 20%) takes 80% of the time. His motto: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.