Teaching With Digital Stories

The following is a sample of what my group has done with digital stories:

For my final lesson plan, I decided to incorporate digital stories. I feel that after using Photo Story 3 with my TE401 group, we were able to easily create a 5 minute lesson. Upon observing in my field placement, I have seen students use laptops and cameras at the 3rd and 4th grade level. They are fully capable of producing products to share with the whole class. I think that digital stories are a great way for groups of students to work together to form a better understanding of one particular focus.

If you are working on a unit with a lot of content, you can divide specific areas up amongst groups and have each group focus on one particular idea. They can use photos to upload onto each slide and move them according to how they want their story to flow. They can then click on each picture and record their voices very easily. This does require a microphone, but many laptops and computers have them inside the schools. Once the students are able to play back their recording they can decide to redo it, or move on to the next slide. If they want their voice to carry over multiple slides they just have to click on each picture as they go. When they are finished recording their voices, they can chose to add music as a background. Some of the music can be distracting, but others are fun for the students to include.

After their final presentations are ready, this is a great way for students to present their hard work. By showing each digital story to the whole class, students can engage in their classmates work and take notes on what they have found. This also covers all of the material needed and allowed each group to produce something rewarding. This can also be uploaded to the internet for parents to view from their own homes. Students can share their work with their families in the click of a button.

The Technology World

CC-A-NC-SA photo by superkimbo

As this class is coming to an end, I have taken a moment to reflect on everything I have learned. From tweeting to editing pictures, I have learned a great deal of life long resources to use in my future classrooms. Not only have I begun to think of ways to incorporate what I have learned with teaching, I also use these skills in my everyday life. I feel that the most important thing I learned this semester is the idea that technology is growing at a rapid pace and can provide you with more than you could ever imagine.

First off, technology is everywhere. I have been so surprised at the amount of information I am able to access from anywhere with an Internet base. Not only that, but the use of cellphones as well. Just through simple text messaging, a connection is formed between your phone and the web.

Secondly, it blows my mind that we are able to do so much with technology. However, the vast majority of our population is not educated properly when it comes to it. All of these tools we have explored in our class have been learned through a simple how to wiki and the task of exploring it ourselves. I think that everyone should be required to learn about the technology available to us, especially teachers.

I have truly enjoyed taking this class and although there were some aspects of the class that were hard to keep up with due to my busy schedule, such as blogging, tweeting, and reading other blogs, I was still able to become familiar with what is out there. I cannot wait to incorporate these skills into my own classrooms and share what I have learned with others.

Video Clips in Classrooms

As I began exploring ideas for lesson plans with the teacher I'm working with, he showed me a subscription their school had to the discovery channel education website. When I went home that night I began exploring and thinking about the different ways videos are incorporating in the classrooms now. If we go onto YouTube we can have almost any video within the click of a button. Thousands of videos on the same search word come up with different variations and ways to send across the same message. People upload their own videos they have made, stolen, or video tapped for others to view all the time. Some of these are illegal, but other are very useful.

I was able to use a video from the discovery channel in my lesson and it was very useful. Not only did I like the one I picked but the way the website was designed, it had links to introduce my video, conclude it, and also spend time elaborating on other topics discussed. It seemed like a great teaching tool and was very resourceful. I think the students really enjoyed watching the clip and it gave them a different way to take in the material being taught. Even though I did not use it to introduce anything new, I wanted another way for them to see the material already presented.

I have spent hours on YouTube and often time find myself listening to music on there, but I think it is a great tool for teachers to use. However, some see YouTube as a negative tool and argue that it allows students to go elsewhere on the web where perhaps they are not permitted. With related links it may be easy for them to go off topic, but what if the teacher was monitoring?

Do you think it would be appropriate to have students exploring YouTube for various ways to incorporate video clips into their lessons?

Working With Wikispaces

My experience in creating my wiki was great! It is very easy and self explanatory. I think it is a great way to obtain a synthesized understanding of certain topics and come up with various view points and understanding on posted issues or topics. I used the wiki to generate a discussion on how people have actually used wikis in their classrooms. I am interested to see the different ways you can incorporate them because they seem easy and very useful!

A wiki is different from a blog because it is not something that is posted for people to read and comment on. It is to be altered be others who want to create a general understand of a topic. Yes, discussions can be mandated and used, but you do not leave comments and share your opinions. You can actually change information to form your opinions and understandings

I think you can use wikis for many different ways. Specifically with students, it may be interesting to use wikis to post a general idea of a science topic for example. Students can go in on their own time and update, change, and ultimately create an understanding that builds off of or replaces others ideas. With the teacher being the ultimate creator, they can monitor the edits. However, being able to change what other write could spark ideas they may have never noticed or thought of.