Digital Storytelling

Below is my SlideShare presentation of how I would teach my students the importance of numbers. Digital Storytelling is a new and fun way for teachers to teach and interact with their students. Although this method may take a long time getting used to, it is something that can help inspire children to learn even when they don't know they're learning. Especially in today's age, kids love technology and spend most of their free time using it; whether this involves video games, computers, televisions or cell phones. Even if a student is sitting in a classroom watching an informational slideshow, they can realte that to when they are at home watching a movie and will enjoy learning. Digital Storytelling can be used in various ways by teachers. They can be thought-provoking, where students need to interact with the SlideShare and answer questions or they can even be something that the students helped create as a class project. My favorite example that I found on the web of using a SlideCast (the same thing as a SlideShare, but with audio) was a classroom's project for mother's day. Each kindergartener drew a picture of their mom and then whenever their picture appeared during the slideshow, their voice could be heard, listing all the reasons that they loved their mom. This example proves that even the youngest children can use and be excited about technology for learning purposes.

VoiceThread, SlideCasts and SlideShares are all technological tools that I could use to help me with my unit plan on the importance of numbers. They are all slightly different; for example, SlideCasts are simply SlideShares with sound linked to them. As displayed below, I have already used a SlideShare to help teach my students a lesson on numbers and how they are not just used in mathematics. I would love to make a SlideCast with my class after they viewed my presentation. Each student can come up with their own personal example of where they use numbers in their everyday lives. They can all draw a picture of their idea and record a voice clip explaining their picture and where they see numbers everyday. After everyone finished their own masterpiece, we could create one big classroom SlideCast of all of our ideas about numbers.

These digital storytelling tools are things that I would love to use in my future as a second-grade teacher. I think they are perfect for fun holiday activities. If I choose to only use SlideCasts and VoiceThreads for special occassions, children will begin to view technology in the classroom as a special treat and will learn start looking forward to working with it instead of dreading it beacuse of its difficulty. I love the Mother's Day idea that was previously stated and I think it would be great to incorporate this same skill into other holidays such as Christmas or even President's Day. For Christmas, my students could make their own technological wish list that could be sent out to the parents. This slidecast could have a picture that each of the students drew of the present they want and their voice asking Santa for that present. For President's Day, we could do a history lesson about the presidents. Each child could be assigned a different one and would have a chance to reasearch and learn more about who they were assigned. After everyone has all their information and has recorded their part of the VoiceThread, we can listen to and watch it as a class to learn about all the presidents that the other students researched.

These are only a few of my ideas for using digital storytelling in the classroom. I'm sure as technology advances, there will be even more tools for us as teachers to implement into our teaching.