From Digital Storytelling in week one, Podcasting in week two, to the Public Service Announcement in weeks three, four, and five, this class has offered many opportunities for me to grow in my knowledge of multi-media and video technology. After creating my digital story, I began to comprehend the value and power of telling a story using software such as PhotoStory3 or Windows Movie Maker. According to Ken Ellis (2005), “For this digital generation, electronic media is increasingly seductive, influential, and pervasive, yet most schools treat the written word as the only means of communication worthy of study.” He goes on to say that “By applying literacy skills to media and technology messages, by learning to skillfully interpret, analyze, and create messages, media literacy empowers people to be both critical thinkers and creative producers of messages using image, language, and sound” (Ellis, 2005). These two quotes are very powerful in helping us understand that students of today are drawn to media and by using media we can advance their skills up the scale of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Isn’t that what we are trying to achieve in the classroom?
As I advanced through the weeks of this course and created new products along the way, I also began to see the power of collaboration for students. During week three we formed groups for our PSA and our group began to collaborate using a Google document as well as through email and text messaging. We were able to share ideas and develop a story line for our public service announcement as we worked from areas all over Texas. Each member of the group contributed to the Google document and gathered all the necessary information needed to put together a powerful and effective PSA.
This assignment allowed me to use prior knowledge; it challenged me to develop new skills in video editing, and it brought to the forefront evidence of how effective this can be for our students in the classroom. As Joe Lambert (2010) said in the preface of his book, Digital Storytelling Cookbook, “The students that share their stories in our circles recognize a metamorphosis of sorts, a changing, that makes them feel different about their lives, their identities.”
Ellis, K. (2005). Visual acuity: From consumers to critics and creators. Edutopia. Retrieved November 16, 2011, from http://www.edutopia.org/print/1321
Lambert, J. (2007, February), Digital storytelling cookbook, 1-30. Story Center. Retrieved November 16, 2011, from http://storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf.
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