Digital Storytelling

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

Confucius

Digital storytelling (DS), at its most basic, is telling stories by using modern technology. The narrator might tell his/her own story, the story of a family member or friend, or of a historical or community event using multimedia such as full motion video with sound, photo/image stills, graphics, or animation. This video is then published on the internet/worldwide web. Other terms or synonyms for digital storytelling include digital documentaries, digital essays or electronic memoirs. Digital stories vary in length but are usually between two and ten minutes long.

Examples of digital stories.





There are a number of benefits to ‘digital storytelling’ (DS). To use Gardner’s learning styles model, DS appeals to learning styles that are often neglected or at least not used as much such as ‘kinesthetic’, ‘musical’, ‘interpersonal’, ‘visual/spatial’ while still appealing to the ‘verbal/linguistic’ and ‘logical/mathematical’ learning styles. To use Peter Fleming’s VARK model, there are learning experiences to benefit and use the abilities of those who prefer visual, auditory, reading/writing, and kinaesthetic learners. Students benefit from ‘hands-on’, ‘concrete’, and problem-solving in learning. Another benefit of ‘digital storytelling’ is that students are more motivated to learn and complete the assignment. They are so engaged and stimulated that they tend to see the learning more as ‘fun’ and less as ‘work’. Students tend to perform better in these circumstances.

How digital storytelling might benefit current/future students from sunshine71600

Student learning is said to be more ‘authentic’ since their work is shared with a worldwide audience. Most students (and teachers) who know that they and their work will be ‘judged’ by everyone and anyone tend to want to put their best foot forward and to produce their best work. Digital storytelling helps students acquire or practise 21st Century Skills such as collaboration, innovation, inspiration, insight, inquiry, and influence.

21st Century Skills

‘Digital Storytelling’ would be highly appropriate and relevant in my current teaching context – an Ontario high school history, civics, law, or guidance classroom. In a history classroom, I could ask the students narrate their own story or the story of a relative who lived through a particular period of interest (e.g. The Depression or Immigrating through Pier 21). In my case, I could post an exemplar in which I narrate my father’s story as a new immigrant to Canada. I could ask them to research a historical figure like Louis Riel and narrate the story in 1st or 3rd person. In law class, I could ask students to narrate the story of someone who changed Canadian law (e.g. Blind lawyer David Lepofsky sued the Toronto Transit Commmission in order to force bus drivers to announce stops and for buses to post stops digitally for hearing impaired customers). In Civics class, students could tell their own story of civic participation (e.g. as an election volunteer). In Careers 10 class, instead of making a poster about their skills, interests, values, learning styles, and personality or about their dreams and ambitions (occupation, spiritual/humanitarian, material, personal growth etc.), they could make a storyboard first and then make a video with themselves as narrators.

To learn about ‘digital storytelling’, I watched a number of videos. The first was the story about Jim Sill, a former video and TV producer who became created an award-winning video production program at El Diamonte High School in California.



I found Sill's story inspiring and I'm looking forward to watching other video's on Sill's YouTube channel and to peruse his website

Mister Sill

I also plan on talking to colleagues and others smarter than myself to see how such a program could be started at my own school or how I might use a scaled-down version of what Sill does (fellow teachers could share the technology and collaborate). My brain is spinning as I think about the possibilities. Video yearbook anyone?

What I really would like to do is be a student in Mr. Sill's class. If you know of professional development opportunities for teachers to learn what their students learn (similar to Mr. Sill's class) either where you live or in Toronto where I teach, please leave such information in this Blog's comment box.

I noticed that Sill (and others) who are video professionals use Apple. I wonder if I should invest in an Apple laptop instead of the Dell that I was planning on getting. I also realize that I need to learn a lot more about copyright and using video or images available on the internet for educational purposes (Fair Use etc.).

I watched a number of digital storytelling videos on the University of Houston's website:

Digital Storytelling @ University of Houston

One video that I viewed was on the KinderTransports of the Holocaust. Unfortunately, Blogger does not seem to read the 'embed' code provided at the site. As a result, I cannot embed the video here. I have embedded two similar YouTube videos, however, below:







With the right training, I think I could incorporate digital storytelling in my classes. Watching video of another teacher doing it is not the same as doing it myself. Teachers are no different than their students.

“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.”

Confucius

RSS Feeds

Over the past few days, I've been learning about Rich Site Summary, or as some have dubbed it "Really Simply Syndication" (RSS).

As I've learned, instead of going to websites to find out if anything new has been posted, a person can use RSS to reverse the process. Instead of the user going to provider to check on 'new' content, the provider sends the user new content. A person can use an 'aggregator' site called 'Feedly' where this new material is stored and organized in one place. It's one-stop consuming.

I can see how this might save time in some instances but not all. The narrator on a YouTube video (on RSS) claims that when a user visits a news website like the National Post, he finds that there is 'nothing new' there. This hasn't been true in my experience. When I visit media websites, I find that the links are changing as the news is changing. So, in my experience, just as the news is always changing, the site is constantly being updated. Newsmedia sites are the ones I use the most. I can see how updates would be more relevant, maybe, for podcasts and blogs that are not updated as often.

Here are some links to what will be coming into my 'Feedly' inbox:

News - National Post: http://feedly.com/index.html#subscription%2Ffeed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Ffullcomment.nationalpost.com%2Fcategory%2Ffull-comment%2Ffeed%2F

National Post

Blog - Saving Socrates: http://feedly.com/index.html#subscription%2Ffeed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fjennilevyesq.blogspot.com%2Ffeeds%2Fposts%2Fdefault

Saving Socrates

Flickr - Most Interesting Photos of last 7 days
https://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

Most Interesting Flickr Photos of Last 7 Days

Podcasts - Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/andy-stanley-leadership-podcast/id290055666?mt=2

Andy Stanley Leadership Podcast

Of all the things I've been learning about 'technology in education', RSS seems to be the least valuable tool I have encountered so far. Maybe I still have a lot to learn. I'm open to seeing new avenues whereby RSS could 'add value' to teachers or students.

Ruben R. Puentedura’s SAMR Model

I find Ruben R. Puentedura’s SAMR model helpful in providing a conceptual framework for the different options teachers have teaching content and skills using current and emerging technology. Having watched a video of him explaining it, I also see his approach as balanced because he does not criticize teachers for teaching using substitution or augmentation to enhance or enrich the learning process. He argues that lessons taught at the modification or redefinition levels are not necessarily superior or better. I agree. I believe there will be times when using technology to improve or enhance learning is appropriate or necessary and can still ‘add value’ to the student’s learning. However, to use technology only at the S or R levels would be to short-change or limit our children and to ill-prepare them for their future or to be contributing members of a globally-competing economy. I look forward to creating more assignments and projects at the M and R level.

In earlier times, if a teacher teaching a Careers course wanted students to benefit from the knowledge, personal experience and expertise of people in the community, the teacher might invite that person to visit the classroom and share in-person. Even today, as I teach Careers 10, I can invite someone or the students can own their learning and invite someone themselves. However, this isn’t always possible, especially if that person doesn’t live in the community. In that case, students might also find occupational information in a textbook, library book, or print magazine.

Substitution: If I substitute technology, students can do research online to try to find the same information. They could access websites like NOC or Job Bank.

However, these websites are pretty ‘no-frills’. For example, there are no testimonial videos of people working in the occupations that students might choose for themselves. In this case, I’d be substituting what students could find in a textbook, library book, or magazine with what they would find online.

Augmentation: As a teacher, I can purchase a membership with a company that provides an upgrade to what students can find online. Career Cruising, for example, provides some functional improvement. It’s a more user-friendly site, more visually appealing, offer’s more one-stop shopping in terms of accessing information, and provides 2 minute videos of people working in a particular field (e.g. lawyer).

Modification: I could significantly re-design this assignment by adding a component whereby the student moves from just being a consumer of knowledge to a producer of knowledge. For example, after researching an occupation using Career Cruising, I could ask the student or a group of students to use an iPad, camera, or camcorder to produce a news video on the occupation.

Redefinition: Finally, I could ask students to make a podcast instead of a video and share that podcast online OR I could ask students to post their video on YouTube AND embed that video on a blog that would also feature writing in addition to the video. By adding the YouTube, podcast, or blog to the equation, I’m transforming the project and the learning by using communication methods that were previously unavailable or, I suppose, inconceivable (I’m sure someone conceived it awhile back before the technology was invented).

Is the 21st Century Skills Movement a passing Fad?

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of the American literature classic The Great Gatsby.

In two articles published by the Washington post entitled “The Rush for 21st Century Skills” and “The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad: 21st Century Skills” respectively, Jay Matthews argues that the 21st Classroom Movement, peddled by Ken Kay of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and like-minded educational gurus, is an annoying nuisance at best and a waste of time at worst. Matthews falls victim to what Jay Collins and Scott Porras, in their New York Times best-selling book entitled “Built to Last” call “the tyranny of the OR”. To put it simply, the “Tyranny of the OR” suggests a black and white, either/or approach to an issue. In other words, it must either be a fad or an irrefutable truth. It’s either 100% right or 100% wrong. In reality, it’s probably neither. Students must be given the skills to succeed in this Brave New Wired-Global Village. Yet critics of the 21st Century Movement make some valid points. For example, the 21st Century skills pedagogical framework is neither a passing fad nor a new, revolutionary approach. As Matthews and others have pointed out, at least some skills that pass for 21st century skills have been around since Ancient Greece. Among other things, teachers have been using Bloom’s taxonomy to make sure they were teaching higher order skills since the 1950s. For example, Matthews writes “I see little guidance for classroom teachers in 21st-century skills materials. How are millions of students still struggling to acquire 19th-century skills in reading, writing and math supposed to learn this stuff?” He goes on to write that the 21st Century movement “…is the all-at-once syndrome, a common failing of reform movements. They say changes must be made all at once, or else”. He’s right of course. Too often, and this is worse in underfunded schools, teachers are given crash courses in the shiny new theory and very little realistic training in how to implement “on the ground”. Teacher’s College, like so much of university education, is long on useless theory and short on practical relevance. For example, my undergraduate teaching degree mandated a course in the History of Education in Canada but did not even offer an optional course in classroom management. The professional development workshops I attend are too often long on theory and short on implementation resources. We learn about the need for new assessment pedagogy (called Growing Success in Ontario) but are given little paid time to think about and develop courses of study and unit plans that incorporate its principles. In Ontario, Matthews might ask “When are teachers going to be shown, using practical examples from their disciplines, how the new curriculum expectations rolled out in 2014 are to be implemented while incorporating 21st Century methodology and skills outcomes? It takes time and resources to switch over from the way “we’ve always done it.” Matthews statement about teachers receiving little guidance includes the woefully inadequate curriculum documents and Ministry support given to private schools. The question is not so much “Must we change?” but “How can we change?” Will we give teachers the tools, training, and time to do what they are fully capable of doing?

Apple iTunes K-12 Video Resources

Apple iTunes U makes free videos available that are relevant and useful to high school teachers. iTunes can be downloaded for free. Once downloaded, the user can click on 'iTunes U'. Using the search bar, the user can search using an entry as simple as 'K-12 videos' or 'high school videos'. While accessing 'iTunes U' for the first time, I found a video by Jonathan Jarc called "Upload video from iPad to YouTube'. The video is a 'How-to' similar to a video a person might find on YouTube. Using visuals of an iPad, Jarc walks the user through the process. I didn't know about 'iTunes U' until today. I found videos that would be more relevant to a university prof but I look forward to surfing it when I have more leisure time to find valuable resources that are more relevant to a high school social studies teacher.

Mr. Winkle Wakes

Watch this funny and brilliant short film by Matthew Needleman called “Mr. Winkle Wakes”. It highlights how human nature is getting in the way of transforming schools into hubs of learning in the 21st century.

The First Day of Kindergarten

I recently had to show my Mom how to use my iPhone 4s. She wanted to call my Dad. I could sense her fear. It was like she was crippled by the thought that she might break something on my phone or cause some other calamity. A gadget that a two year old plays with and learns intuitively felt so foreign to her. She was like a fish out of water. I felt impatient. But the reality is, the way she felt and responded is like how I sometimes feel and respond in the face of contemporary technological changes that impact, among other things, education.

Have you ever tried to drink from a fire hose? I haven't. But I do remember trying to drink from a lawn-hose squirt-nozzle as a kid. I didn't drink much but I did manage to squirt water in my eye and up my nose. Getting water in my eyes and up my nose wasn't a pleasant experience. I stumbled around disoriented for a few moments until my head cleared and the discomfort dissipated. In truth, I've never seen anyone attempt to drink from a fire hose but I have seen videos of water cannons being used by authorities to blast protesters and knock them on their butts. If you've ever seen a newbie on ice skates, you get the picture. If not, imagine lots of trepidation and thin air betwixt and between arms and legs flailing in all directions in vain search for sturdy support.

Along with excited curiosity, this is a little of how I feel when confronting the explosion of technology and the recent changes taking place in society as well as in education. Some of the changes they imply seem staggering. Revolutions are bloody. They are not comfortable.

To use an educational metaphor, my thoughts about emerging technology are a little like those of an excited but anxious child on his first day of Kindergarten. What will my new environment be like? Will I be able to "make friends" with this rapidly changing educational context? Will I be competent? Will I be able to succeed? Where is my security blanket-the way I've always done things? Will the other kids (my students) like me in this new environment, especially if I struggle while learning new tricks? Will I be able to keep up?

When I watch videos like Mr. Winkle Wakes, I can identify with Mr. Winkle wanting to stay in his comfort zone. I like comfort. I like being comfortable. As the Chinese character implies, change is opportunity but it's also threatening. Like the water cannon, change threatens to knock us me off my feet and at least temporarily disorient me. As I try to drink and take in the new technology, some spills and is wasted because I don't know how to use it. I have a fancy gadget (Panaboards anyone?) in my classroom but I haven’t been trained in how to use it. ‘Smartboards’ can make great video screens.

As an educator, am I a little like the one-year-old who gets a shiny new toy but prefers to play with the box and wrapping paper instead?

You know you're a technological dinosaur when you watch a video that you think is current, only to find it was uploaded to YouTube in 2009. Don't you just hate that? The train left the station hours ago. Hours are like years in the brave new wired-world we live in.

You know you're a tech newbie in danger of being left behind when you watch a video like 'Mr. Winkle Wakes' and you totally identify with Mr. Winkle. You wrinkle your imaginary nose, wag your metaphorical finger in your mind and you're like, "Hey, don't you be poking fun at Mr. Winkle."

Just as one part of the Chinese character for change is ‘threat’, the other part is ‘opportunity’. The kid on his first day in Kindergarten is still excited about the possibilities. The first day turns into the second and the second, third. Before long, our newbie is getting along famously in the sandbox. He’s learning to share his new toys. As educators, we will learn how to share and collaborate all over again.