I started this week by looking at this David Jakes’ article The Strength of Weak Ties. This quote really spoke to me.
Basically, you’ve got a dial-up connection from the ear to the brain and broadband from the eye to the brain. Teach kids to take advantage of the connectivity, and the raw capacity of the brain to process visually,
It really does show the importance of visuals in learning and as much as we might nostalgically look back at the joy of the dial up connection noise, I don’t think any of us would decide to go back to dial up speed which is essentially what we are asking children to do in an heavily auditory based lesson.
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The article also outlined the importance of digital storytelling and how it allows people to create content which invokes an emotion and is an important skill to teach children. We also need to ensure then while we teach children the skills of “remixing” they also need to know the importance of sharing their own creations fro other’s to use whether it is on a class blog, school website or YouTube.
I really enjoyed this Jason Ohler article which focused on the DAOW of storytelling. Which breaks storytelling down into 4 parts- Digital, Art, Oral, Written. A good digital story needs to be a combination of all of these things. The oral tradition of storytelling is one that goes back to the beginning of civilization and still remains a most powerful form of communication. “Good teaching is often good storytelling”. Children will frequently need to orally tell a story (presenting alongside a PowerPoint) and need opportunities to improve these skills. i have included a video of an Irish Seanachai showing the skill of oral storytelling. Writing is an essential part of storytelling especially in the planning and preparation stage. Digital stories are multi-media projects that need some elements of design and artistic creativity in order to get their point across. Finally, children need to use Digital means “effectively, creatively and wisely” to enhance and share their stories.
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Digital storytelling in the classroom
Withing the classroom their are countless opportunities for digital storytelling across all subjects not necessarily in language lessons. By using stories in other subjects children can show their learning creatively but also look at a topic from a different perspective. Like this example of a “Day without Math”
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I like the idea of using Draftback as the basis for a digital story especially so children can see the collaboration that they have done on a document. This could be the beginning of a story which can then be enhanced by adding images, video or an oral recording. We are currently looking at the topic of rivers and I have been using a lot of visual learning (more on that below) in class. I think this is a great opportunity for the children to create a digital story on the life of a river. They could do this in a factual way or explore the idea of casting the river as a fictional character and how that character changes over its life. I will try this out in class this week and see how it works. I have found Seesaw to be an excellent way to display student work and also allow students to create a portfolio. I think this will be a good platform to share digital stories in whatever means the children choose to create them.
Visual Inspiration
Following up from a previous blog post on visual literacy I used an image of the Nile river as the focus in a lesson on how humans and animals use rivers. The children used Seesaw to upload the picture and remix it with audio recordings, drawings and captions. The use of technology really enhanced the lesson especially for my students who normally struggle to complete work. The audio recording option meant they didn’t have to worry about spelling and writing which encouraged them to focus on the task at hand- explaining the uses of rivers. The class was buzzing with different ideas and after they had completed the See Saw they were encouraged to complete a piece of writing in their books. I didn’t expect many to move onto the writing but they were so engaged in the lesson after using the image as a starting point that the majority of the students produced excellent pieces of writing. I have included some examples of their work here and I think I will Seesaw again when focusing on digital storytelling in class this week.
Cheers,
Paul
Leyi added some ideas of uses of rivers via a drawing and also a caption description.
Hosai focused on remixing the original picture by adding drawings and key words.
Mubarika narrated her drawing with a description of the uses of a river in an excellent use of technology to demonstrate her learning.