MOD 9

7 Things You Should Know About Digital Storytelling

 

Digital story-telling is defined as the use of story lines and dialogue partnered with images and sound files to create a digital, interactive video in which a story is told. The most simplistic example is a slideshow presentation with all the aforementioned aspects listed above. These presentations can be instructional, historic, persuasive or personal in nature. The process is rather simple so that students with limited technological skills can participate with limited teacher aid. The process can be suited to group work but is more geared towards individual work. As with any story, digital story-telling begins with a script and progresses with the addition of audio-video. 

The article states that, "for digital storytelling to be an important component of higher education, it must provide what other tools lack, including an effective integration of technology with learning, an emotional connection to content and increased ease of sharing content."

With the increased usage of technology in the classroom on the parts of both educators and students, it is no wonder that this method is becoming widely used and acknowledged as an effective teaching tool. Digital story-telling is a new way of using the age old art of story-telling to communicate personal and professional narratives. This method also serves to bridge the gap between educators and students with aversions to technological aids in education due to its relative simplicity. 

Digital story-telling offers students a creative vehicle to communicate comprehension of subject material to teachers and their peers. By using this method the student becomes well practiced in both digital interface which is increasingly more important in our modern world, while also focusing on the subject material. Educators benefit from the inherent learner motivation instilled through the use of creative and fun technology to reach learning objectives.

MOD 10: Steve & Andy Go Fishing

"Steve & Andy Go Fishing"

The link above leads to the "Animoto" film I created. "Animoto" and other similar tools could be used as very attractive learning methods for ESL students as they are relatively simple to use and add a welcomed element of creativity to the lesson. Students can take pride in showing their completed products to their classmates.

 


The Evil Wizard

The above link leads to my comic strip. In the same way that "Animoto" could be used to spark student creativity, so could "Storybird." Children would enjoy selecting corresponding artwork and written, reading and speaking exercises could be very easily linked by the educator in the lesson plan.

MOD 6: Twitter Podcast

The use of Podcasts, or "personal on demand broadcast," is another very useful if not essential tool for ESL teachers in our modern world. This can also be an excellent form of professional development no matter the profession. Podcasts may be used as a virtual log of performance summaries by a teacher highlighting positive and negative consequences of applied teaching methods in real-time. The accumulated log can serve as a longitudinal study of progress on the part of the teacher and students and with the option of allowing others access to it the individual's efforts may serve to benefit peers worldwide.

The podcast I followed was "How much speaker, how much learner?" by Alan Palmer. The podcast discusses the inherent differences related to being both language speakers and language learners. The topic of the podcast serves to highlight the fact that language acquisition is a life-long process even for native speakers. The podcast may also be related to learner motivation and morale issues. The author stresses that by thinking of yourself or evaluating and labeling yourself as a speaker/learner by percentages this may raise the level of pride on the learner's part when examining just how much of the target language they have acquired.

MOD 11: ePals

I believe that the multiple activities made possible in the ESL classroom with the aid of interactive sites like ePals is refreshing. This will be a useful tool to connect ESL students with others and students and teachers that are native speakers of the target language. The use of emails and audio/video technology like Skype will offer students an exciting and applicable set of interactive opportunities to practice their L2.

Also on the positive side of this equation is the ease of use associated with this site. Parameters applicable to a specific class are easy to manipulate which decreases the anxiety on the part of the technologically-not-savy teacher like myself.

Upon examining what ePals has to offer in matter of tools I kept thinking that the majority of the tools offered on the site could be re-created for free or found on various similar teaching resource websites again for free.

 

MOD 3: The Social Media Revolution

After watching "Social Media Revolution 2011" I felt a good deal of anxiety regarding the world we live in. Technology and how it has effected the human species is an incredibly stressful subject for me and yet I know that I must submit in order to be successful.

Watching "A Vision of 21st Century Teachers" both added to this stress and anxiety but also goes to show that if others can do it than I should be able to as well.