EDUO 9130: What’s YOUR Story? The Art of Digital Storytelling

Introduction

Digital Storytelling is the practice of using technology tools to help tell a meaningful and often heartfelt story. Digital stories are planned. They have a beginning, a middle and an end. The story itself is the most important ingredient. Technology tools add visual and auditory enhancements but the story itself is the key ingredient. Without a good story what you see and hear is fleeting. Merging a good story with even simple tech enhancements creates a memorable product.

As with traditional storytelling, most digital stories focus on a specific topic and contain a particular point of view. However, as the name implies, digital stories usually contain some mixture of computer-based images, text, recorded audio narration, video clips, and/or music. Digital stories can vary in length, but most of the stories used in education typically last between 2 and 10 minutes. The topics used in digital storytelling range from personal tales to the recounting of historical events, from exploring life in one’s own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between.

Digital Storytelling content has many categories.

• Biographical (Ken Burns type) Informational/Explanatory, Narrative
• Student-Created Tutorials – Informational/Explanatory
• Public Service Announcements – Informational/Explanatory & Argument
• Focus on Research and Informational Text
• Historical Docudramas – Informational/Explanatory, Narrative

Remember: Digital Stories are “told”. They are not fact-filled reports. They don’t have bullet-points, fancy bells and whistles or links to anywhere. They are told in first-person or second-person voices. They are after all, stories.

Course Objectives:

• In this course you will have opportunity to:
  a. Understand Storytelling and its place in all curriculums and in specific Common Core curriculum areas and use of Critical Thinking
  b. Learn about available digital tools that can be used to create Storytelling projects
  c. Plan, create and publish a Digital Storytelling project
  d. Create plans for students to develop curriculum-based Digital Storytelling projects

Course Relation to ISTE and CCSS

• ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education)
  As technology integration continues to increase in our society, it is paramount that teachers possess the skills and behaviors of digital age professionals. Moving forward, teachers must become comfortable being co-learners with their students and colleagues around the world.”ISTE Advanced Digital Age Teaching standards and performance indicators:
• Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity
• Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments
• Model Digital Age Work and Learning
• Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility
• Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

CCSS put a heavy emphasis on how to take advantage of the affordances provided by technology. Students are going to need to know how to use presentation software in their oral presentations.

• CCSS: English Language Arts Standards; English Speaking and Listening
  The standards require that students gain, evaluate, and present increasingly complex information, ideas, and evidence through listening and speaking as well as through media.
  “An important focus of the speaking and listening standards is academic discussion in one-on-one, small-group, and whole-class settings. Formal presentations are one important way such talk occurs…”
  Source: (http://www.corestandards.org/resources/key-points-in-english-language-arts)
• CCSS: English Language Arts – Anchor Standards/College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard for Speaking and Listening
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.2 Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.4 Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.5 Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.
  Example: ELA-Literacy.SL.5.5 Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, sound) and visual
  displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.
• CCSS: English Language Arts – Anchor Standards/College and Career Readiness Anchor Standard for Writing
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.
• CCSS: English Language Arts – Anchor Standards/College and Career Readiness Anchor  Standard for Reading
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7: “Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs,videos or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.”
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.6: “Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the content and style of a text.”
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.1: “Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.”
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words

 

Register Now