As I am sitting here on a sick day, suffering through the school system's illness of the week, I have been considering how to best use digital storytelling in a classroom. When I was student teaching in a grade 2 classroom, my students were working on Reptile and Amphibian Reports during writers workshop. The fisihed product was a class book and the idea to make them into a digital story. By the time I left in December, this had not been done. Too many other things had gotten in the way such as testing and other curriculum goals that needed to be met. I wonder for those who struggled with the writing process, if the end result was a "movie book" if this would have motivated them more. And how great it would be for children whose parents are divoced to be able to bring home 2 DVD copies of the class book to share with both parents? While not on Amphibians or Reptiles, I found a short story on Spiders that would be a great example if each student just wanted to record their report rather than a whole class report.
From YouTube
Digital storytelling in the classroom would be a great motivator for students to publish their work in a way that is relevant to their world. It is also a great way to introduce new content, set up prior knowledge and hook students into a lesson. With technology being such a huge part of students lives today, we can't keep it out of the classrooms. When we ask parents what motivates their child and they say videogames, we can't just sigh and ask if there is anything else...If technology motivates them use it!
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