I feel like I should name this post overwhelmed!! After spending half a day on homework today and feeling like I haven't even made a dent in it I am a little overwhelmed!! This is a lot to do in a week with working full time and having a family.
On a positive note, I am finally feeling like I am understanding the purpose of digital storytelling and how I can use it in my classroom. I have enjoyed watching other people's digital stories and thinking about what I would like to do. I have book marked quite a few of the stories I like in order to show them as examples to my students. I am hoping by half way through the year my students can all create their own.
One of the ways I am hoping to use Digital Stories in my classroom are with my students research projects. Each year the sixth grade students have to pick an influential person in history and write a research paper on them. They then have to present a 5-10 minute presentation to the class. I would like to have each student create a digital story of their person and use that as part of their presentation.
Another idea I was thinking of is having the kids make digital stories of their favorite experience in elementary school. (after 6th grade they move to the high school). These stories could be used at our end of the year poetry shop that all the parents and grandparents are invited to.
I am excited to make my own digital story soon so I can start to understand the process. I also enjoyed playing around with voicethread this weekend. I am sure my kids would love it! Well, time to get back to work....maybe I will be in bed before 1 am.
I know the feeling about the homework. I think that this has been by far the most we've had to do for any class so far. Having your students do a digital story about their favorite experience in elementary school sounds like it could be a really fun activity. They just released an iPad app and I may have to steal that idea and sell it to some of our teachers.
ReplyDeleteI too and feeling WAY overwhelmed with all of the work this week. But also on a positive note I am also understanding what this digital story telling really is as well. It is pretty cool and it truly does seem like something I could use with my kiddos here at school. I think with our poetry unit and dino unit right now it will be possible to do digital stories with these two combined!
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the 3 full time jobs right now, Mom, Student, and Teacher!
I love the idea of having students create a digital story about their time at the school. Our third graders move to another school due to size constraints and that would be an awesome final project. It would be a great keepsake.
ReplyDeleteI also have felt insanely overwhelmed with this week's work. I have been also a bit frustrated with need to buy textbooks, being told to read them, but not doing much with it afterwards. We seem to be reading and learning enough from the resources on the web that the traditional texts could be eliminated to reduce some of the work load that seems to be unused.
HA, I agree to all three post and your's as well Kristy. Overwhelmed is such an understatement right now. On another note, I enjoyed using voicethread as well. I had so much fun with it, I kept telling my friend to listen to it, I sound totally different. Ha! When I become a teacher I will most definitely use this resources/application. It's cool that the IPAD released an app for it. I have also watched everyone's presentation so far and they are good!!!
ReplyDeleteKristy keep your head up and we are ALMOST done!! Yay us! Best wishes to you.