The Art of Digital Storytelling

This article is about digital stories more specifically the art of writing a digital story. The author explains the Take Six method to storytelling in depth and provides an example of an elementary teacher teaching Take Six to her students. The teacher wrote two versions of the same experience to show her students the difference between telling the reader what happened, and actually putting the reader in the moment (showing). The teacher’s example was about a negative experience with her program director that almost made her not become a teacher. Version 1 was a summary of what happened to her, and in version 2, she transformed her story by using the take six method to get her students to experience the emotion in the story.

Reading this article opened my eyes to storytelling. The article does a good job of describing what needs to be included in a digital story. I really like how the author gave an explicit example of what is telling verses showing the reader. Storytelling seems like a very effective way of sharing experiences with on another and would like to learn more about how I can use this in my classroom.

Take Six: Elements of a Good Digital Story

There are six elements defined in the article, each element is a step to creating a good digital story. The six elements are: (1) Living Inside Your Story, (2) Unfolding Lessons Learned, (3) Developing Creative Tension, (4) Economizing the Story Told, (5) Showing Not Telling, and (6) Developing Craftsmanship. The first element is about getting the audience to your feel like they are experiencing your story first hand by you sharing who you are, what you felt, and what the moment/event means to you. The second element explains that a good digital story has to make a point, and the viewer should feel like they learned a lesson, or gained understanding. The third element, developing creative tension, is about making your audience feel the tension. There should be a problem/tension in the beginning that gets solved later on. The fourth take says a story needs to have a destination, to make a point. The article described the fifth element as, “Good stories use vivid details to reveal feelings and information rather than just saying something was tall, happy, scary, or difficult to do.” The sixth element is about combining media elements to convey meaning rather than just being artsy and decoration.

I appreciate how this article describes the elements well enough for the reader to understand while still being crystal clear. Another aspect of the article I like is how they relate creating a digital story to making a movie. For example you want the view to feel as though they are experiencing every emotion right along with you, just like a movie. The rubric at the end of the article will be helpful for when I try to create my own digital story.

The ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS•S) and Performance Indicators for Students

Like the national educational technology standards for teachers, there are also six standards for the students. The six standards or performance indicators are: “(1) Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology. (2) Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. (3) Students apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. (4) Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources. (5) Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and practice legal and ethical behavior. (6) Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations.”

These standards will serve as a helpful tool for when I begin teaching. Like other standards, I will be able to look at the list of standards and know what is expected of my students, and therefore what I should be teaching them. I also like how the article breaks the standards up into the 6 categories: (1) Creativity and Innovation, (2) Communication and Collaboration (3) Research and Information Fluency (4) Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making (5) Digital Citizenship (6) Technology Operations and Concepts. As an education student, looking through standards can be extremely overwhelming, so I really appreciate how this article has organized the standards. They are laid out in a clear manner that allows teachers to easily see what students need to know and be able to do.

National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers

This article states the national educational technology standards for teachers. There are six standards teachers must meet. (1) Teachers are required to demonstrate they understand technology operations and concepts. (2) Teachers are obligated to plan and design an effective learning environment and experiences that support technology. (3) Teachers’ curriculum plans must include methods and strategies for applying technology in order to maximize student learning. (4) Teachers are required to use a variety of effective assessment and evaluation strategies. (5) Teachers should use technology in a way that enhances their productivity and professional practice. (6) Teachers must understand the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the use of technology in PK-12 schools and abide by all when teaching.

As a future teacher, I think it is nice there are clearly laid out technology standards for what teachers are expected to be able to do. As a digital native, six standards seem easy enough to follow.

Education for the 21st century the basics

This article talks about how to teach students of the 21st century. It focuses on the elements of 21st century learning. “The elements include focusing on the core subjects, the areas identified in NCLB legislation; 21st century content, the emerging content areas such as: global awareness; financial, economic, business, and entrepreneurial literacy; civic literacy; and health/wellness awareness”. The article goes on to explain that students are partly shaped by their environment, which is, “media rich, immediate, fast, engaging, dynamic and instant. It is electronic and digital, a communication medium implying instant gratification”. Therefore as teachers we must change the way we teach to fit their needs.

The ideas in this article sounded awfully familiar to me since the author discussed how to teach digital natives. Given that we have covered this topic before, the article did not hold my interest at all, and to be bluntly honest I wanted to stop reading after the 2nd page. Obviously children of the 21st century need to be taught differently than children 100 years ago. Because there is more technology, students are used to quick results, thus teachers need to adapt their teaching styles to better meet their learners needs.

Standards for the 21st century learner

The article is from the American Association of School Librarians and covers 4 standards areas for the 21st century learner. The article elaborates on the 4 areas and lists out all of the standards for each area. “(1) Inquire, think critically, and gain knowledge. (2) Draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, and create new knowledge. (3) Share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic society. (4) Pursue personal and aesthetic growth“.

This article is very confusing out of context, and I’m not quite sure what to think of it. I could benefit from seeing some in the classroom type of examples of how these standards are used. The article was not clear if these are just suggestions or actual standards for educators.

Copyright 101

The article Copyright 101 speaks to two policies; copyright and fair use. The author defines copyright as it “protects original works including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works such as novels, poetry, songs, motion pictures, computer software, and architectural works. In essence, copyright protection goes into effect as soon as an original work is fixed in a tangible form of expression. The copyright in the work immediately becomes the property of the author”. The article defines fair use as “a copyrighted work can be used or copied for educational purposes as long as the use is not solely a substitute for purchasing the work”. The article also provides some basic examples of fair use in schools.

This article was not very helpful, and to be truthful it was also kind of lame. Although the article included examples of what teachers are and are not allowed to do, the examples were common sense. We all know teachers are allowed to copy an article from a journal and distribute a copy to their class. The example that really bothered me was,” A teacher wishes to use a very expensive textbook for his or her class. Due to the high cost, the teacher makes copies of the entire book for class distribution.” Come on! To think any real educator would do this is down right insulting.

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons allows other people to use and benefit from your work. Getting a creative Commons license is free and takes a simple visit to their website creativecommons.org. Creative Commons modifies copyright terms to best suit individual needs; telling your viewers exactly what they can and cannot do with your work.

As a student, I benefit from seeing other educator’s work. I would like to see more teacher’s ideas, previous lessons, bulletin board examples etc. that I could possibly use and build from. We could all benefit and learn from one another, so as long as people give credit where credit is due, I think they should be able to use their ideas for educational purposes.

Design Your Web Site from the Bottom Up

This article gives website creators 10 easy to follow steps for building a website. Step one is brainstorm a list of everything you want to put on your website. Step two tells you to take that list and group the items into categories. Step three suggests you should critique the categories you came up with in order to determine they make sense. Step four is revise your categories if needed. Step five recommends you develop a flow chart to help you organize the layout of your website and keep track of your pages. Similar to step five, step six proposes you develop a navigation plan that your audience will use to move around your site. Step seven is page layout. Step eight suggests you keep your website simple. Step nine; make your homepage which will be the introduction to your website. Step ten says you’re done, congratulate yourself.

To be honest, I think this article is pretty common knowledge. While the steps are easy to follow, they are really obvious suggestions like keep your site simple, organize it in a viewer friendly manner, and create your home/introduction page last. Obviously you would create your intro page last because you don’t know what will be on your site until you have given it some thought. I think anyone who was taught to write the introduction of an essay last would know to create their home/intro page of their website last. Steps five-seven are really repetitive and probably could have been condensed into one step. The only part of this article I actually liked was the part about grouping. I think that having things separated into news, class info, and for parents categories would be really helpful for my site viewers.

Universal Design for Learning Guidelines

I am assuming this graph goes with the Universal Design of Web Pages in Class Projects article. However, without further information I am not sure how someone would go about using these guidelines to create a universally accessible website.

Universal Design of Web Pages in Class Projects

Universal Design means addressing and thinking about the needs of the widest possible audience when creating a website. We all know the internet has been connecting people around the world and has the potential to make information accessible to everyone. But the reality is some websites are not accessible to people with disabilities. This article is about how make a website that is accessible to everyone.

I found this article very interesting because I am sure I will encounter many different students with varying disabilities in the future, thus I feel it is important to learn how to provide appropriate techniques for various situations. The article includes disabilities a teacher may encounter, however the answers for working with these disabilities/circumstances seem complicated and look as though they require a lot of additional training. This led me to wonder if schools have trained specialists who know what to do for students with various disabilities.

The Student WebQuest

The article is about how teachers can use WebQuests to enhance learning experiences in their classrooms. Not only do WebQuests save valuable class time by focusing students on a task, but they also allow students to go deeper into a topic. The author explains, “A well-written quest demands that students go beyond fact finding: It asks them to analyze a variety of resources and use their creativity and critical-thinking skills to derive solutions to a problem. The problem is often ‘real world’--that is, one that needs a genuine and reasonable solution.”

One thing I like about WebQuests is students will be working on the computer and I can easily look and see if they are on task. Thus I won’t have to worry so much about my students being on appropriate sites, or if they are messing around surfing the web. It is important for students to know how to search the internet for good information, but I don’t need all of my assignments to be about finding reliable websites. Therefore another thing I like about WebQuest is all of the websites needed for quest are already on the site and students can just do the work. In general, I think using WebQuests in the classroom will be exciting not just for the students, but for me too.

WebQuest Focus

The article explains that WebQuest is a great tool when created and used properly in the classroom. There are five guiding principles to creating a good WebQuest: Find great sites, Orchestrate your learners and resources, Challenge your learners to think, Use the medium, Scaffold high expectations (FOCUS).

I really enjoyed reading the WebQuest focus article, and believe it will be very useful when trying to create my own WebQuest. My favorite section of the article is Use the medium because it contains some great suggestions for how to use the internet. If my students are learning about ocean life, I like the idea of putting live footage of sea otters, or dolphins some kind of aquarium/zoo cam on the page. Another idea I liked was using conversation; allowing students to post their comments and findings, or opening the WebQuest up to other classrooms and having even larger discussions. An additional thing I took away from this article is, it is important to have the students do something with the information instead of just paraphrase the information. I want my students to go beyond just retelling the information. I want them to be creative, use their problem solving skills, and have an opinion about things they read on the internet.

Family Guide to Child Safety on the Internet

Child Safety on the Internet is an informative article about how parents can assist their children with being safe online. Within the article are expert advice and tips about how to protect children and encourage safe online practices. It also has information about what steps to take if something bad happens while your child is using the internet; who to contact, what to do etc. The main focus of this article is to promote internet safety.

This would be a great article to share with my students’ parents. I like that this article explains to parents that today’s students NEED to use the internet, and that there are safe ways for their children to use the internet. I think the online parenting tips are great, and I also really like how they set up an online safety contract. Hopefully my future school district has something like this set up for the parents, if not I will definitely ask for permission to add this article to my classroom website.

Teaching Zach to Think

This article is about a boy who does some research online about the Holocaust. He comes across a professor’s website from Northwestern University that claims the Holocaust never happened. The 14 year old boy assumed the information must be valid because a professor wrote it. The article places an importance on teaching students how to validate information found on the internet.

Wow, what an interesting article! I agree it is important to teach our students how to find good information. The article states,” the most vital skills will involve applying knowledge to produce information and facilitate communication. And one of the most important skills will involve evaluating the resources you decide to use. As much time as we spend teaching kids how to find things on the Net, we need to expend 10 times more effort teaching them how to interpret what they’ve found.” I also like the part of the article where the author points out how to tell if a website is someone’s personal site, and I think this would be something valuable to teach my students.

Developing Ethical Direction

Developing Ethical Direction was about how to teach students what is right and wrong when it comes to using technology. Many students cut and paste things from the internet and use it in their papers because they think it is an ok thing to do. This article uses a compass metaphor to teach about proper use of technology and misuse.

I liked this article because if teachers use these kinds of activities in their classrooms then our students will be much more informed about how to behave when using technology. I can remember one of my teachers explaining that copying and pasting from the internet is wrong because someone else took a lot of time writing that. She taught our class to take notes on what see read on the computer screen, and then come up with our own sentences. The digital compass activity would be great to use in the classroom because it covers so many different kinds of technology use; messaging, plagiarism, hacking into the teacher’s computer, texting during class, etc. While some of the subject such as hacking onto the teacher’s computer may seem extreme it would still be a good exercise for the students. And you never know, maybe one of your students actually knows how to hack computers!

Tools of the mind

Tools of the mind was my least favorite of the three articles. The first thing that bothered me about this article is it uses data from 1999-2003; that was a very long time ago and it is really hard for me to believe that those facts are still true. The author states, “the most commonly used applications are what I call show-and-tell applications- PowerPoint, Word, Publisher, and Front Page-with the Internet the most commonly used non-show-and-tell kind of application in terms of frequency of classroom use. Classrooms rarely use spreadsheets or databases, which are conceptually and technically more difficult.” I believe more recent data would show that databases are a big part of middle and high school, I know from personal experience they are used to find research, scholarly journal articles, etc to write research papers and complete projects. The other thing I don’t agree with is that technology should be almost invisible. Yes technology should support the core areas of teaching but why does it have to be invisible? Technology is not invisible to today’s student it is very much a part of who they are as learner.

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

I really enjoyed the Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants article, and I agree with the author 100%; teachers need to update their methods. I see myself more as a Digital Native than an Immigrant because I grew up with computers, internet, and video games. I think it is really important that teachers start finding ways to teach the traditional subjects in a way that their Digital Native students will understand. “So we have to invent, but not necessarily from scratch. Adapting materials to the language of Digital Natives has already been done successfully. My own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content. After all, it’s an idiom with which most of them are totally familiar.” I agree with the author that games are a great way to learn and practice skills, but there are also great websites that provide students with wonderful visuals. Scholastic is one of my favorite websites for teaching because it allows your students interact with their learning. For example there is a unit on the Scholastic site called The First Thanksgiving that shows students what it was like to be on the Mayflower coming to America and then how life was when they arrived. With all of the great resources the internet provides us with, today’s’ teachers really have no excuse not to teach in a Digital Native friendly way.

Digital Kids. Analog Schools.

Digital Kids. Analog Schools was a fun, quick article to read. In the article there were a lot of quotes, but quote two really stood out to me. “I’m getting tired of hearing people continue to ask for the evidence that technology helps students learn. It doesn’t matter. We know that good teachers help students learn. We need technology in every classroom and in every student and teacher’s hand, because it is the pen and paper of our time, and it is the lens through which we experience much of our world.” Like this author, I am also tired people debating whether or not students should or shouldn’t have computers in class. Today’s student grew up with technology swirling around them, so of course it is part of their lives. Why wouldn’t we use something that is so much a part of our student to propel them further in education? If we as teachers find a way to harness technology and teach the less popular subjects in more exciting ways, I think we should.