Thing 19 -- Digital Storytelling

A fundamental skill for flipping the classroom? 

 Video Creation -- AKA -- Digital Storytelling.

 

There are lots of options out there for creating digital stories or short videos to demonstrate and present. Teachers and students can easily tap into these tools and take what used to be a timeline, report, essay, explanation of process, poster, brochure -- anything -- and  make a quick video, or digital story instead. For this activity I used Windows Live Movie Maker. Voicethread is another I like esp. because it has a great iPad app.

The How

To create a digital story, start with a series of still images. In my example, I created a digital story demonstrating the use of reflexive verbs in a beginning Spanish class. Here's the storyboard I started with:

As I worked through my project, I added title slides and more images. The storyboard is really easy to work with, you just drag & drop to rearrange items. Adding narration wasn't the smoothest. I had to kind of trick out the sound recorder, which is a separate tool in Windows. But it came together pretty easily in the end and only took about 1.5 hours. This might seem a bit long, but that includes finding images, creating script, adding narration--everything. Compared to what it would take to do this same activity by hand it's at least equal, if not shorter. And I never have to worry about it getting lost or ruined. One & done!

I asked a few colleagues to preview this and the only real improvement I would make is to fix the audio. In other projects, I might add more bells & whistles; fancier transitions, background music, etc. But as a project demo for students, I wanted this to be simple and focus on the content requirements of the assignment. However, I would encourage my kids to do  as much as they want as long as it doesn't interfere.  View my completed video below -- if the embed isn't working follow this link: 21 Things Demo Video

The Why

Digital stories give students yet another option for demonstrating knowledge. For those with less confidence in drawing skills, digital stroytelling takes some of the creativity fear away. Working in digital media also allows for quick, easy edits. No need to start all over or crumple up paper in frustration at one small mistake.
As a teacher, I create a video tutorial of exactly what I want my students to do, complete with instruction. I can pair it with a handout and easily meet multiple modalities without a lot of extra work. This is a great resource for others involved in educating a student. Parapros, special ed support, parents etc. can all see exactly what the content is, how it was presented in class and what the expectations are which supports them assisting the student.