Sorry for the late post, but my blog and I are now back on speaking terms. 🙂
I have to admit when I read that the class was about Digital Storytelling, I thought we were going to be using PhotoStory (ha, ha, remember I’m still a newbie, working on it). But I quickly realized Digital Storytelling is really much more than that. If I had to summarize loosely what I think Digital Storytelling is about after listening to Alan Levine I would sum it up in the following way. There are so many stories that exist on the internet that Digital Storytelling needs to be exciting and engaging to the audience to draw them in. Recently my students started using blogs in class on a daily basis. I try to encourage them to draw in the reader, but they struggle making the leap from simply relaying information versus making it interesting and engaging to the reader. Storytelling digitally really has the ability to draw and engage the reader of your story. Alan talked about the “story” being really in the telling as much as it in the story. I agree with what he is saying. It is my experience that most people loved to be told a story, whether it is a story about your dog to first graders or a joke that my dad is telling at coffee earlier that morning. Telling good stories is an exciting experience that the teller can draw into the story with their enthusiasm. Throughout history storytelling has been an important part of the human experience. Our goal as educators is to teaching out students how to tell stories to engage others in our lives and experiences. I have enjoyed the engagement that my students and I have experienced in there narrations of their learning in their blogs. When they have the freedom to tell the “story” of their learning we are able to connect with them on a different level that perhaps we might not be able to in a classroom setting.
I was reading an article called, Digital Storytelling Can Help Boost Student Learning, and in it the merits of Digital Storytelling were also discussed. The author John Orlando, states that storytelling allows students to move away from simple recall of facts and engages them in higher level thinking processes such as synthesis, analysis and evaluation. Alan mentioned Five Cart Flickr which seemed like a great tool for helping students to develop their storytelling ability as well as their ability to improve their speaking and vocabulary. But also I made the connection to the process that students go through when they write stories and I wonder if enough emphasis is placed on making the story engaging and drawing the audience in to listen. Students today need engagement in their learning or they get distracted or change the channel or exit the screen, it is a difficult task to keep them engaged, but they are possibly the best case for why they should be trying to engage their audience. Would they read this if they didn’t have to?
cortneyleonard 