Digital Stories

What?-
Dave and I dicussed and did some final adjustments to our script and plan for our digital stories. We didn't meet in class, but worked together through email and google documents.

So What?-
Learning how to put together a digital story is going to improve my teaching so much. I have all these ideas for future units and lesson plans, and now that I can create digital stories, I feel like my ideas are going to be supported so much more effectively for my visual learners. Teaching Enlgish is exciting because we get to read and discuss emotional topics. Digital stories are going to compliment these texts so well and make for an even more successful learning experience for all types of learners in my classes. I really think that I will use digital stories the most in my poetry units because imagery is such a huge element of poetry and being able to make those images come alive for my students is going to be such an awesome special effect and learning tool.

Now what?-
I am pretty set on having one fo my assessments for my classes be a digital story performance assessment. I really want to have my students create digital stories in small groups so that they can show what they got out of a novel, poetry or unit by creating a interesting digital story. This will not only help them to show their knowledge, but they will work on communication and group skills as well. I co-teach right now and students really love creating any kind of presentation in the computer lab. I feel like digital stories are so much more interactive and fun than a powerpoint or slide show so my kids will really love the assignment. Now that I have learned how to use the softwear, it will be that much easier to guide my students through a fun and creative assessment. I really just want to do my best to teach as many different kinds of discourse in my classroom, and technology is a huge tool for discourse in our present culture. Another great thing about this assignment has been bouncing ideas off of Dave. He is going to be a great teacher and we have a lot of the same interests within the English content. I hope to keep in contact with him throughout our careers because he will be such a great friend and influence in my career.