DST Resources

These two sites are great resources for digital storytelling and other technology tools that teachers integrate in their classrooms. Take a peek, then add some more to the list!

(n.d.) Digital story telling: Using Photo Story 3. 21 Things for 21st Century Educators by CCRESA, IISD, MISD, SRESD. Retrieved from http://21things.weebly.com/9---digital-story-telling.html
This digital storytelling web page is one part of a very helpful, informative website that addresses several 21st-Century skills and technology. Links (including one to a copyright quiz) and charts accompany steps for completing a DST. This would be a good site to bookmark and share with students.

Center for Digital Storytelling.(n.d.)Retrieved from http://www.storycenter.org/memvoice/pages/tutorial_1a.html
If you haven't explored this site, it will be well worth your time. The tutorial pages describe the literary and technical concepts behind storytelling (i.e., point of view, emotional content, soundtrack) and guide the reader through the process of creating a story. The descriptions and definitions provide a teacher with precise ways to dialogue with students about DST. The pages also include descriptions of various types of stories, enabling teachers and students to envision what their end product can be like. Several links provide additional information and examples. The simple layout, explanations, and links provide a great reference source for novices and veterans.

DST reflections

Challenges
The challenges inherent to a DST project involve time and organization. I dealt with the following challenges while developing my project:
• keeping up with all of the various course readings, blog entries, and assignments while investing the time to create a DST project
• working with my older camera that will not download onto my newer computer
• borrowing a flip camera that took still shots instead of video; having to retake shots
• borrowing a third camera on two separate occasions
• when there was too much background noise on the raw video footage, figuring out how to mute the audio on the video and then add new narration
• ending with 3:50 and having to add more to make the 4:00 minimum
• stressing to make sure I correctly understood all of the directions
• wanting to continue to edit after I 'published'
• making changes to initial storyboard so that it matched the final video
Lessons learned about MovieMaker
Regardless of how user-friendly MovieMaker may be, students would still need a lot of time to use this exciting tool to produce a video. As has been recommended numerous times, I would start small with a project involving DST. One idea for an initial project would be for the class to produce one video and have individual students work on one or two slides. Students could work on a group storyboard if they used a wiki or googledoc. Once students were familiar with the process and MovieMaker, then they could advance to individual or small group projects. The value of DST should not be overridden by time-constraints.
Lessons learned about myself as a learner
I am feeling compassion for my students who often feel overwhelmed by the size (i.e., all of the items that have to be submitted) and detail of a project (i.e., how to format report pages, or all of the items on the storyboard). (. . . Somehow,it seems, storyboards reach a point when they stop being helpful to the student and become more about the instructor. I would want my students to start with a storyboard, but then follow the 80/20 rule, especially since everyone seems to vary from the storyboard once production actually starts. What is the point in going back to make sure the storyboard matches the finished video? . . . ) I am renewing my conviction to help students learn how to break down large projects into small steps. I feel energized by the content of the project but deflated by the detailed requirements. I enjoy checking off items from my to-do list. Even though our group agreed to abide by the 80/20 editing rule, I keep spending too much time on this project because we have to post on YouTube. If my name is on something, then I want to do a good job.

Digital Storytelling Workshop Introduction

The goal of TechnoLang's Digital Storytelling Workshop is to motivate secondary education teachers to take advantage of the benefits digital storytelling offers their instruction. To achieve this, TechnoLang will demonstrate effective teaching strategies used to promote student learning through a PowerPoint presentation including examples of instructional digital stories, sample rubrics, and informative literature. Through this workshop, TechnoLang will provide teachers with sufficient information on how to use Movie Maker and other digital storytelling software so they can implement it in the classroom.

Re-Submission: VoiceThread

VoiceThread is described as a multimedia tool in which subscribers may express thoughts, ideas and instruct on various topics. VoiceThread, can used as a multi-faceted blog tool for students. Richardson, W.(2006) asserts: “…learning specialists Fernette and Brock Eide’s research shows that blogging in its truest form has a great deal of potential positive impact on students” (pg.20).

TechnoLang has created a VoiceThread workshop for ELL and Special Needs Educators. Zena MaNais facilitates the workshop in a PowerPoint presentation that demonstrates how to use VoiceThread as a multimedia, collaboration tool. Included in the presentation are sample VoiceThreads created by fellow contributors: Jane Edwards, Cliff Kicklighter, Bethany Stiefel, and Matt "The Coach" White.

Please see the following link for the PowerPoint:

http://martybray.net/zmanais1/7464_VTworkshop_zsm.ppt

To view the invitation flyer (created by a Word flyer template) go to link or copy paste:

http://martybray.net/zmanais1/7464_VoiceThreadflyer_zsm.pdf

To view the survey (created by Googledocs) go to link or copy paste:

http://martybray.net/zmanais1/7464_VTsurvey_zsm.htm


Digitally Speaking (2009) VoiceThread. Retrieved October 2, 2009, from PBWorks Website: http://digitallyspeaking.pbworks.com/Voicethread#TeachingStudentstoCreateandModerateThreads

Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press

VoiceThread. (2007) VoiceThread. Retrieved October 2, 2009. Website: http://www.voicethread.com

Digital Storytelling article

Tom Banaszewski's frank account of the challenges and rewards of Digital Storytelling reflects a passionate teacher who successfully helps students to find their voices, confidence, sense of community, and technology skills. He recounts how DST elicits student emotion, commitment, and ownership. With some teacher prompting and organization, students add substance and shape to their initial ideas. He recommends that students begin with one anchor picture (for a place project) and develop a catchy introduction and conclusion to prevent the DSTs from becoming simple slide shows. Because students are interested, they help each other peer edit and develop trust as they take risks when they share their viewpoints and creations. Banaszewski strongly recommends that teachers create a model DST: one, they learn about the technological aspects of the project and develop solutions to glitches; two, they take the first risk-taking steps for students to follow. Although he warns that the sound is the hardest part, he counters that student voice is the most important component and says that the extra effort is worth the investment. He includes tips about recording voice with the video camera (cap on) and then importing and extracting the sound (on iMovie). He emphasizes that the technology is secondary to students' learning storytelling.
Banaszewski's observations and recommendations echo my brief experiences with DST. Making a video with two other focused, responsible teachers took hours longer than we had anticipated. However, as we worked, we became friends, developed trust and respect for each other's ideas, and had fun producing a video that can be used repeatedly by a lot of teachers as a model DST book report. The effort to use DST is worth it, but the wise teacher will solicit help, organize, and gather a lot of useful tips before starting.

Banaszewski, T. (2002, Jan/Feb). Digital storytelling finds its place in the classroom. Multimedia Schools.

Introduction to Jane's DST project

SAT Prep: Reading to Read



As students approach their junior and senior years in high school, they and their parents often start to develop concern over their potential SAT or ACT scores. For years, parents and students have asked me, "Do you do SAT prep in English class?" and for years I have wanted to say, "Of course. Every day. Do you?" What I mean by my reply is this: "Have you been reading and thereby gaining reading experience and skills for the past several years?" If students have downloaded SparkNotes and watched movies to fulfill high school reading requirements, they very likely lack reading skills than they need to do well on the verbal and written sections of the SAT and/or ACT. More importantly, they probably lack the reading skills necessary to take on the independent reading required by most college classes. If a student has not been reading throughout his middle school and high school career, there's no magic formula, strategy, or tip that can make up for years of non-reading. As I tutor SAT students and ask them about their reading experiences, I find that students who have read a lot benefit to a higher degree from the strategies offered by the learning center. I see firsthand what parents pay for SAT specialized instruction and feel that a few trips to the public library could have saved them thousands of dollars. So, the purpose of my video is to promote reading to middle school and beginning high school students and their parents while these students still have time to gain reading experience that will enable them to succeed both on College Board tests and at college. And who knows, if any students accept my challenge to read more, some of them may find an interest that they can enjoy for the rest of their lives.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IVMxADIMd4

How to Use Comic Life in the Classroom

How to Use Comic Life in the Classroom discussed the benfits of using comics to engage students in instruction. The author explains that there is a growing need in education to use every available tool to help students in their learning. Comics can benefit students of all ages and abilities. The article describes the different skills that can be improved by using comics in the classroom stating "comics can help students analyze, synthesize, and absorb content," (2007). According the How to Use Comic Life in the Classroom, the written components of a comic can help early readers connect words with pictures. Comics can also be used in ESOL classes, and for vocabulary introduction in any class to help students with language aquisition (2007). Comics can be used as "stepping-stone(s)" to help students with more complex work. It also provides students with an entertaining way to gain information that cannot be acheived in reading an essay. Comic Life helps provide students with the motivation they need to complete comprehesive projects.

Thacker, C. (2007). How to use comic life in the classroom. Retrieved from http://www.macinstruct.com/node/69

TechnoLang Comic Life Project

Comic Life Resources

Add your favorite Comic Life resource sites ----

Here's one that I found helpful:

Courtis, A. (2008, October 18). Tech module: Using Comic Life in the classroom. Retrieved from Connections Website: http://cnx.org/content/m18037/1.1/

Amelia Courtis provides a succinct background and description of Comic Life, a discussion of the benefits and constraints, and links to tutorials and samples of Comic Life projects. Sample lessons cover a range of disciplines. The article's subheadings make it easy for the reader to find answers to specific concerns. The "Tips for Teachers" section lists valuable tips for first-time users.

Comic Life Article

Author of several graphic novels and the instructional book Comics in Your Curriculum, Richard Jenkins describes how he worked closely with a classroom teacher to write his book that includes standards, rubrics, and practical lesson plans for a variety of disciplines. Jenkins promotes the use of comics in the classroom saying that comics are a "medium" rather than a genre, and as such, they adapt to a variety of situations. The strong appeal of comics' format makes them an appealing way to engage students in their learning. Comics are a "dual discipline" art form, combining "visual and verbal," "image and text" because the images are presented in sequence and are adjacent to the text. Jenkins explains that the versatility of the medium makes possible a huge variety of applications.
Because Comic Life is easy to use and is relatively inexpensive, it puts the appealing medium of comics in the hands of teachers and students who can use it to enhance learning and creativity. Elementary, middle, and high school students are enjoying graphic novels, so adapting a popular medium to present content material in a fresh way seems like a wise idea.

Tingley, S. (2005). Comics in your curriculum: An interview with Richard Jenkins. Comics in the Classroom.Retrieved from http://www.comicsintheclassroom.net/oolessonplans.htm

Comic Life Reflections

Because current students are very drawn to visual media and because boys seem especially drawn to the comic strip format, I look forward to using Comic Life both for instruction and for student-based projects. By the time I've sometimes caught on to a new technology, it's not so new to students. However, I haven't YET seen the comic strip medium being used in classrooms, so I expect that students would appreciate the novelty and the effectiveness of the what Comic Life can provide. And does anybody else smile at the Comic Life sound effects?

Introduction to Comic Life "Interviewing Tips"

(page 4 of my Comic Life project.)
During the time that I was researching the benefits of students and teachers using Comic Life, I subbed at a local high school and there was one of the male tenth grade students reading a graphic novel. This brief experience reinforces one of the values of Comic Life: boys read comics. Not to be gender-biased, but after living in a household with three teenage boys, I am continually on the lookout for what I call "boy books," and both articles and life experience confirm that the comic strip format appeals to males (and females!). Because Comic Life provides an appealing learning medium for all ages and subjects, I look forward to using it in the English classroom both for instruction and for student-based projects.
I developed the Comic Life project, "Interviewing Tips," to use as a springboard for students before they choose their own interviewing tips to illustrate using Comic Life. Experts predict that today's students will change jobs multiple times during their adult working years. Having several interviewing tips firmly established in their minds will help them to make the most of the interviews in which they can expect to engage. Many of my former speech students have reported back to me that the interview unit from speech class proved to be a valuable tool for them as they encountered both college and job interviews. So, using Comic Life to further strengthen this unit in speech or English class provides students with an engaging way to think about these "real life" situations.
As a side note, I decided to include a variety of style formats in my sample project so that students could begin to consider different effects for their own projects.

VOICTHREAD Workshop via PowerPoint

TechnoLang has created a Voicethread workshop for ELL and Special Needs Educators. Zena MaNais facilitates the workshop in a PowerPoint presentation that demonstrates how to use VoiceThread as a multimedia, collaboration tool. Included in the presentation are resources for utilizing the tool in lesson planning along with sample VoiceThreads created by fellow contributors: Jane Edwards, Cliff Kicklighter, Bethany Stiefel, and Matt "The Coach" White.


Please see the following link for the video presentation (please excuse VTworkship typo; the video filing system wouldn't allow me to change it to VTworkshop):

http://martybray.net/zmanais1/7464_VTWorkship_zsm.wmv



To view the invitation flyer (created by a Word flyer template) go to link or copy paste:

http://martybray.net/zmanais1/7464_VoiceThreadflyer_zsm.pdf



To view the survey (created by Googledocs) go to link or copy paste:

http://martybray.net/zmanais1/7464_VTsurvey_zsm.htm


The rationale of creating a video for the workshop is so that the participants can take cds to review later. Sharing the cd of the workshop will be encourage so as to "spread the word" on VoiceThread.
Also, the workshop will be given live, but for purposes of sharing TechnoLang members VoiceThreads, creating a video facilitated that as well.

We hope you like it!

Diction Discovery Voice Thread

Introduction to Diction Discovery Voice Thread

My Voice Thread project, "Diction Discovery," targets 4th and 5th grade Language Arts students and challenges them to select creative diction for a poem. Careful, deliberate word choice sits at the heart of all effective communication. Because of the nature of the Voice Thread program, students of various abilities will be able to participate. ELL can suggest words both in their primary language and in English. Students do not have to suggest words for every blank.

Students will
1. carefully read each stanza of the poem and look at the pictures to note details before contributing
creative, appropriate diction to fill in the blanks;
2. consider structural details in order to use correct parts of speech for the blanks;
3. consider the sounds, syllables, and connotations of their word choices;
4. comment on others' contributions and use others' ideas to spark their own creativity;
5. read aloud (to themselves if they choose to type their comments) to hear the rhythm of their word
choices;
6. participate in a collaborative project;
7. use technology to participate;
8. have an opportunity to use their vocabulary creatively.
Closure: After providing time and opportunity for all students to contribute to the poem, the students and teacher could select their favorite diction choices. The teacher can share her original poem and compare how her original choices compare to the students' choices. Students may then choose to write their own pet poems.
Diction Discovery addresses the following Georgia Performance Standards for fifth graders and NETS standards for elementary students. The teacher will evaluate each student's contributions as they relate to these standards. The teacher will construct and use a rubric to reflect each student's mastery of the listed objectives.

(See Georgia Performance Standards and NETS Standards listed in comments.)

Voice Thread reflections

Voice Thread Resources

Integrating Voice Thread in the Curriculum

Egbert's focus on integration, blog 2

Stephen Covey's "Beginning with the end in mind" habit is echoed in Joy Egbert's first chapter of Supporting Learning with Technology,and the end, according to Egbert, is student learning. I want to focus on student learning and have technology supplement or partner with me to accomplish that goal. Because teaching has been described as an "art," I have to realize that the way another teacher approaches a plan may not be what will work in my classroom with my students; it may be something that I admire from afar. However, dialoguing with an artful teacher may be enriching for both of us. One useful strategy for me will be to post the six "21st-century skills" in my plan book so that as I craft my own plans, I balance the emphasis I place on each of the outcomes. I like Egbert's use of the term "Principled Technology Use" to refer to thoughtful, appropriate use of technology.

Posting Requirements

Please add vivid, insightful, challenging comments in response to what you read and see.

Tech Integration Success

As part of a curriculum integration project, Simmons College student Caitlin Krauss selected Google Lit Trips, devised a lesson plan based on a student's language-based learning disability, and successfully implemented the strategies. The high school student's disabilities prevent her from easily learning vocabulary, understanding concepts, and remembering what she has read. The visual, auditory, and interactive components of Google Lit Trips provides helpful sensory components, and the content maps, images, and videos provide background information that serves as anchors for concepts in novels. Krauss supplies appropriate question samples and suggests that students with these types of disabilities use a two-column sheet of paper to record bits of information that they discover at each place on the map. Krauss notes that Google Lit Trips can be used in the general education classroom, and that pairing students with different sensory strengths would benefit all users because each student would focus in on different aspects.
Krauss' use of googlelittrips.com to aid a student with learning disabilities is an excellent example of appropriate integration of technology to benefit student learning. The site uses tools such as Google images, Google earth, maps, music, video, and web links to provide commentary on the travels of characters in novels. The information creates visual references that students may lack background to imagine, and it introduces real places in the world that provide a context for characters' adventures. The site provides interdisciplinary studies that include social studies, politics, geography, and literature. After using googlelittrips.com, advanced students could use technology to create their own lit trip. Teachers of both special and general education classes can benefit by using this resource.

Krauss, C. (2009, June). Google Lit Trips for students with language-based learning disabilities. Google lit trips home page. Retrieved September 9, 2009 from .

Edwards Technology Integration Definition

TechnoLang members share a clear vision of the technologically-integrated learning environment. Technology integration has been achieved in the secondary language arts classroom when the teacher confidently and wisely partners with technology as a natural component of achieving desired student learning and when students engage with technology in a way that also prepares them for their futures. Continual, thorough professional development that empowers the teacher will in turn empower the student. Empowered students will have the skills and discernment to access appropriate information, synthesize ideas, create, and collaborate to produce quality work that effectively demonstrates their learning.

What additional details would you add to clarify for your academic discipline?

Welcome

Welcome to TechnoLang, a collaborative group of five innovative, exciting graduate students who are seeking to promote the integration of technology with language and literature through shared resources, ideas, and experiences. Above all, the members strive to find practical, appropriate ways to enhance and motivate student learning. (See group members and their personal blogs listed on sidebar.)