iMovie training

Participated in an iLife/iMovie 09 training that was offered by my district yesterday. I learned a lot of great tricks like green screen and PIP. Thinking about how a teacher will incorporate digital storytelling in the classroom is a long process. There is so much planning involved. Also, choosing source material, like cameras or online content is a lot of work. I will probably do one on my own first to show the class before I have them participate and eventually take ownership of the process.

creativity, digital story telling and handwriting

Been thinking lately about how digital story telling can really work for a lot of kids who have writing issues, like my son. Digital story telling offers a way to present knowledge/understanding using organization and creativity without the difficult writing/handwriting process. And I mean not only handwriting, but keyboarding as writing as well.

I am going to apply to pilot the use of iPod touch as a tool to create podcasts at my elementary school. I think that until they Touch gets a built in camera, we will primarily use it as a recording device. There are headsets with microphones and earbuds which I am hoping will make it easier to record in a classroom setting. There are always recording issues. The Touches do have wifi and safari for internet access. And there are quite a few apps, but I have to investigate whether you actually create the podcast on the touch or record and sync the audio to a desktop/laptop for the actual creation in like Garageband or whatever.

I am so interested to hear other teachers' opinions about podcasting/digital story telling because of how "wed" to the writing process teachers can become sometimes, for obvious reasons. I think I see this because at the level of language learning/acquisition that my students are, they do almost no writing, just language production. So I know there are alternative means of expression/presentation/assessment that can be used effectively. Storyboarding is a big element in good digital storytelling which is an organizational tool. The editing process is well, just that, editing...choosing the most important material to include and checking for meaning/correctness. A well done digital story can be a very complete representation of a students thoughts/understanding/ideas.

I keep meaning to read more of the text Digital Storytelling in the Classroom, but quite frankly not only is it like a user's manual, which I am notorious for eschewing in favor of just trying things out, but it's also dry as toast and about as indigestible.

I'm proud of myself for finally quieting my mind enough to finish another assignment and thankful that I have 2 days over this teacher's convention that I can spend some time and get things done.

Phrase Assignment

I have finally gotten it together enough to sit down and create the story that I've been thinking about for the phrase assignment. It takes me so long to get from idea to product. Why is that? Anyone have any words of wisdom for me?