Digital Stories

For my digital story, I decided to make a video to share with my students as part of a unit. The hardest and most time consuming part of the whole project was finding pictures to use. While there are several pictures online on the topic of seasons, many were too complex and detailed for the level I want to teach this lesson at. Once I found the pictures I wanted, I was easily able to upload them onto VoiceThread. The rest of the process went smoothly and I am very satisfied with the product. This was a very easy-to-use software that I would definitely use later on in my teaching.

Digital stories can be used in a variety of ways in several subjects in school. The first way I thought of using it was to tell the story of a famous or historical person like Abraham Lincoln or Mother Teresa. I think talking about someone's life through a digital story would be very beneficial to students, because it is a meaningful way to hear about the life of an influential human being. Digital stories can also be used the way I chose: to present science information. I think seeing pictures along with hearing/reading captions is an excellent way to teach science concepts because it caters to auditory and visual learners. Also, many science concepts can be taught best with pictures, making story boards very useful. One way digital stories could be used in language arts is to summarize a book or story. Students could use pictures they find on the internet or pictures scanned in from the book to create a recap they could present to their classmates. This would help the students who read the book to understand it more thoroughly, because they are teaching it to someone else. It also gives the other students information about the book, possibly inspiring them to read it themselves. Finally, story boards can be used to display student work. Teachers could have students complete a project and present it on a story board. The students could then make a recording explaining their project, why they did it, and what they learned. Teachers could display this story board on a public blog in order for parents to see what their children have been doing at school.