Experiential/digital learning at Chicago museums

We visited several museums in Chicago this summer: I was impressed with how the museums incorporated technology into learning experiences for children. Solana created the above postcard at the Chicago History Museum by taking a photo of herself and then selecting contemporary and historic images of Chicago to fill in the other letters.

At the Children's Museum "Skyline" experience, we used provided materials and worked in a space in front of an automatic camera as a team to create our own skyscraper. Afterward, we narrated the steps of our process and our reflections to go along with images that were snapped of us working. Then, when we got home, we could view the digital story on the museum's web site. Both were fun, fairly brief learning experiences that instantly incorporated digital sharing as well as narration and reflection in the second experience-- something to think about for the school year.

Digital Stories from Senegal

I’m always looking for good examples of digital storytelling. These videos made by students at the Sinthiou Mbadane school in 2008 and 2010 in the Mbour region of Senegal were recommended at a workshop I attended recently facilitated by Giselle Martin-Kniep. They’re short videos narrated by the students in French with English subtitles that provide a window into the daily lives of students who attend the school.

A Year in Morocco: Digital Story

Ironically (and pathetically!) it took me a year to create the digital story below: I started out in a Photostory workshop at a conference and added to it and revised little by little. I have yet to use it with students, but have enjoyed showing it to teachers as an example of a digital story.

If I hadn't been so motivated to tell this story, I would have given up because the process took me so long. The idea of publishing it on the blog so that it would be easy to share with teachers and classrooms was also a motivating factor. That's important to think about when creating a digital story: how will it be published or shared with others? How will students decide what story to tell?

In workshops and online templates, I see the recommendation of having students use a storyboard set up to plan for their digital stories. I wrote out my story first in word, thinking about what pictures and music would go with groups of sentences. Is that process best for me because I'm a digital immigrant? What is the best way for students to plan? How do documentary makers create their text? I'm still thinking about this.

I started this story as a memoir piece, but realized that it had a lot of Social Studies content in it. I've seen examples of students using Photostory to report on content information that they had read in Social Studies and one middle school student this spring created a report-like digital story in Imovie about his XBox. However, the most powerful digital stories I've seen have been personal narratives and I like to think of digital stories in the way they're defined on wikipedia (which acknowleges that the term is evolving and debated): "'Digital Storytelling' is an emerging term, one that arises from a grassroots movement that uses new digital tools to help ordinary people tell their own 'true stories' in a compelling and emotionally engaging form. These stories usually take the form of a relatively short story (less than 8 minutes) and can involve interactivity."

This wiki (Cogdooroo) can be a bit overwhelming, but I found it a great resource for thinking about digital storytelling.

And now, without further ado, "A Year in Morocco." (Thanks, Taaka!!!)

Teachers creating digital stories

At one school, I'm working with middle school teachers of special education to create our own short digital stories as a way of modelling for students as well as familiarizing ourselves with this form of communication. Here are a few short examples teachers created their first time using IMovie. The first, "Labrador Retriever" by Sherilynn Saporito, is an example of how you could use Imovie, powerpoint, Moviemaker, photostory or another program to have students write about content in a science or social studies course. The second, "Dallas" by Katrina Hammerl, is one I'm most interested in: telling a personal story using music, words and images.

Imovie rules

I'm experimenting with digital stories using Imovie with a group of middle school teachers. I can't even begin to describe how much better Imovie is than Windows Moviemaker: yet another example of how Macs are superior. This is a quick short I created with some flip cam summer footage (mostly filmed by Solana-- more shaky camera action). (Thanks, Eileen!!)