Digital Storytelling

In education, the various content areas do not stand alone. Instead, the students learn skills that are specific only to the content area and those that travel across the disciplines. One way that this idea of disciplinary literacy could be executed is to include student-made videos to tell a story. Perhaps the students are studying Galileo in Science, or George Washington in Social Studies. In order for students to truly realize these historical figures and their roles in our lives today, they must first study texts, watch videos, and participate in discussions. The next step in getting students to relate to their learning could be to allow the students to create a digital story that puts history into action. The students could work together in pairs or teams to become these characters of study and provide interviews or annotate their autobiography. Students could recreate important events in history that helped mold the lives we now live. Students would have to decide what facts are most critical for making the desired point. If students were to take the information that they gained from the texts, videos, and discussions, and then apply it towards the creation of their own work--they would also be working on the four 21st century skills desired for learning: critical thinking, creative thinking, collaborative thinking, and problem solving.

Some video sites that can be used with the school server to show students videos include the following:

Discovery Education

This is a site that can be offered within school districts to provide teachers and students with a wide range of opportunities to digitally transform classrooms and learning for students. This site offers award-winning content, interactive lesson plans, formal and informal assessments, virtual experiences and videos, and classroom challenges and contents. All the content on this site is aligned to the state standards and works as a way to replace hard-copy textbooks.

Teacher Tube

This site allows teachers to find educationally-focused videos for the classroom that have been uploaded and viewed by other teachers. This is also a location where teachers can upload their own videos to add to the site. TeacherTube is intended to be a safe location for searching and viewing videos in the classroom.

TED-Ed

With TED-Ed, teachers can use animated lessons that are available on the site exactly as they are, they can modify them, or they can create their own new lesson and submit it for animation. Lessons on ten minutes or less, and are paired with informative and engaging animations to help students grasp the concepts.

There are several websites available for students, such as Muvee Cloud, to use to create their own edited video for digital storytelling. There is also an application for tablets called Lego Movie Maker that allows students to create their own scenes and capture them in a series of sliding pictures. Students can use any props or materials that they can create or find, and it allows them to create an animated movie from fixed objects to tell a story. Students can add music, dialogue, and visual effects to their videos.

Watch this video to gain a teacher's perspective of digital storytelling in the classroom.

Images on the Web

Here is a link to a photo of me teaching English in Xi'an, China-

Teaching in China

Using photos and a program such as Flickr in the classroom is a wonderful instructional strategy. It gives students an opportunity to see something with their own eyes and to make a connect that they may not make by description alone. My school is considered to be a Global Studies school. Each grade level focuses on a different continent. I teach in third grade, and our continent is Asia. Each month, I incorporate lessons that involve an aspect of Asia to support global awareness. 

During one of the first lessons discussing Asia, I let my students know that I had actually been to China. I spent some time describing my experiences, but they would not have had the same impact, had I not included photos to go along with what I was saying. The students loved seeing and hearing about another country. In the photo that I shared in this discussion forum, I am teaching English in a Chinese classroom. 

My students spent some time comparing and contrasting their classroom to the one in the photo and making some inferences on what it might be like there. Having the photo for the students to compare allowed them to make some inferences and discoveries on their own without me just presenting them with abstract information. I could have discussed my travel and teaching experience with the students, but the photographs of my experience made it much more powerful and meaningful. My students still ask to see more pictures from trip. 

I loved having the opportunity to share my experiences with my students, and it was a great way to incorporate some of the various standards set forth in the educational system and my school. One way this activity fit into the reading curriculum was that it practiced comprehension strategies such as compare and contrast and making inferences. Furthermore, my students received first-hand experiences to learn about their continent of study.

Everything Google

Google Apps for Education is a large suite of applications that is a totally free service provided to schools for use by teachers, students, and parents. Google Apps has three layers of applications: core applications, Google-related services, and third-party applications. Most people are familiar with the core applications by Google as they include applications such as gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs. However, all of the applications that are available within the three layers are extremely useful within education. 

More importantly, Google Apps for Education gives students, teachers, and parents the ability to work in a safe and secure environment with desired restrictions. Teachers and administrators have the ability to turn options on and off for different groups of users. Google Apps is also very useful for teachers and administration because it offers a lot of space to store emails and documents. This allows teachers to stay organized and share documents in an easy-to-access location for colleagues, parents, and students. These documents and applications are automatically saved within the Google Cloud can be accessed from any device with an internet at any time. This ensures that all users have the same compatibility and access no matter the device or location. 

The best part of Google Apps for Education is that there are unlimited options in its use. It can be used in a variety of contexts by different levels of users. The applications allow educators the opportunity to incorporate technology into all aspects of instruction, communication, and collaboration with minimal devices necessary, and at absolutely zero cost. I would like to create a Google classroom website that incorporates many of these applications. All of my instructional resources would be organized and available in an online format. This would transform my classroom and students' learning.

Infographics in the Elementary Classroom

I've used activities requiring data analysis and image display in my classroom. This experience turned out to be extremely fun and positive for the students. I have mainly used infographics in three ways: pie chart posters to represent percentages from a survey, timeline posters to focus on a time period in history, and Wordle posters to represent the key ideas from a passage or story. I have taught third and fifth grade as a general education teacher. During this time, I have used the various infographic posters as a way to extend my students thoughts and allow them to take information and create a presentation collaboratively. Not only do the students love to work on these projects, it also promotes higher levels of thinking and an overall deeper comprehension of the subject matter. In order for the students to create a visual representation of their data or information, they have to first really understand what it is that they are trying to show others. 

Part of the math curriculum involves students creating surveys and collecting and analyzing the results. Upon this, the students are asked to be able to effectively represent their findings to share with others. I allowed my students to input their data into an online program that created a colorful pie chart for the students. The students had to then insert the pie charts into an online poster format. Students expanded on the pie chart to create a poster that clearly demonstrated their task and findings.

In Social Studies, a major piece of the curriculum includes the use of timelines to mark events in history. Our class studied periods in United States history at a time and then created timelines as a reference to use for the remainder of the year. I allowed the students to work in groups to create a rough draft of their timelines on paper. Once approved, the students created a timeline poster online that included the use of images and photos, as well as links for further information. This reinforced the timeline skill while expanding on the students' knowledge of each event they included on the timeline. Students also practiced their researching skills because of this infographics project.

In English Language Arts, one of the main components of reading comprehension includes the ability to highlight key details and concepts within a text. I would allow the students to type in a few sentences or a paragraph that gave the best summary of the important details from their reading. Once all the students' writing was included, we created a Wordle poster. The repeated ideas that the students shared appeared on the poster. We would hang these up as a reference to use for the remainder of the unit.

Overall, I believe infographics are an amazing educational tool and practice that should be used in the classroom. It allows students the chance to explore concepts at a deeper level. It is also a very engaging activity for students that supports collaboration and the use of technology in the classroom. I love to use infographics with my elementary students, because the students seem to really hold onto and remember the information that they have learned along the way.