Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

Recently I’ve tried to stop using the “integrating technology” term and simply talk about using it. Jeff over at The Thinking Stick provides a really nice example of this in his latest post, Technology: it’s what we do, not one more thing to do.

We need to get past the point that we need to understand how the technology works. We don’t! We just need to understand how it can be used in our classroom to enhance learning. The students will figure out the ‘how to’ part on their own. They live in this world, they are good at troubleshooting problems and finding solutions.

I’m sure I’ve said these exact words at least 3 times in the last month. Take an inventory of your classroom skills and interests and start using and building on the knowledge and expertise you already have access to.

On Wednesday, I’m spending the day working with 2 classes wanting to use video editing. Normally this would be a very easy day to plan for. However they are using software I’ve never used. I worked on a project today as a test and ended up using the help section for practically every task. I’m not planning on doing a whole lot more in preparing to use the software. The kids can figure it out themselves. I will spend the day talking and demonstrating the importance of storyboarding, planning and review the elements of storytelling. That’s what they need to know. Technology is the easy part. Learning is the hard part.

technorati tags:jeffscofer, technology

We all know how critical it is for us to demonstrate to students the importance of truth and accuracy in blogging and in more importantly in life. It’s been both humbling and powerful to watch Will deal with the issue of not using primary sources as well as not citing sources. Will was very forthright in his errors and even thanked those who called him out.
Darren recently discovered the truth about the South African wiki project that many of us, including me have been touting.

But the truth is not only hard, it’s time consuming. I’m staying at a good friend’s house and he asked me to watch a documentary he downloaded called “Loose Change“. I had never heard of it but I’m assuming many of my American friends have. Basically it’s a conspiracy theory about 9/11 pointing to the possibility that the US was actually behind the terrorists acts. Very compelling and raises some interesting questions.

After watching, I immediately headed to wikipedia to see what else it had to say. As I figured, it offered not only a summary but criticisms and links to other sources. I don’t plan on delving to deeply into this but was pleased to know there were many places to look for truth. I could see this being a powerful lesson for students to engage in and research. David Warlick’s been advocating this type of use for wikipedia and has always believed this is how we need to deal with the information.

It’s one thing to read something and be confronted with an idea to be believed or not, but when it’s presented in video format, it’s even more compelling and easier to believe. That’s why we want our students to be adept at using this medium. They need to understand how to use images, sounds and mix them together to tell powerful stories; stories that are meant to express ideas and persuade an audience. Having some experience in creating these messages will serve them well when viewing them.
Being able to determine truth ican be very difficult and requires time and effort. This type of research would be all but impossible without tools like wikipedia. Wikipedia provides a much more unbias view that commercial sites or personal sites offer. The fact it points away from itself and lists 41 references and over 30 external links makes me feel fairly confident I’m going to be in for a good workout should I choose to pursue the truth. We know that students often are uninterested in the rigors of research but I’m sure that when it comes to issues that matter most, truth is worth pursuing.
If you haven’t watched this video, you should. Not because you’ll agree or disagree but because you’ll be curious to find the truth.

I love the warning at the beginning of the video encouraging the distribution and viewing. Very FLOSS.

Flickr has become an essential in digital storytelling. This group uses 5 photos to tell a story.

This would be a great and simple way to introduce digital storytelling to your students. We used to call it sequencing but digital storytelling sounds much better. There are many great and not so great examples.

I’ve set up my wiki for my digital storytelling workshop on Monday and Tuesday. I really struggled with the format, the tools and the pedagogical approach.

The format:

How many activities/projects can be done in 2 days? I know many workshops will focus totally on one project. They’ll spend much of day one setting the stage for digital storytelling and then spend day 2 on creation. After posting about my last workshop, the great comments helped me confirm my instinct for balance. I’m hoping to interject pedagogy and philosophy in the midst of the various projects. Wes’ idea about constantly providing opportunities for participants to reflect as well as create is a good one. Not that I’ve never done that but I need the reminder. Secondly, I’m choosing to use day 1 to create 3 mini-projects and day 2 to create single larger project. My thinking is since I believe digital storytelling is much broader than most think, I want to give them experience in a few different approaches. Even at that, we’ll only be scratching the surface but only creating a single project doesn’t address the myriad of possibilities

The tools:

I had a great Skype conversation with Miguel last night and he described the discussion he’s been involved with about the tools of digital storytelling. For a number of very good reasons, they’ve chosen to go exclusively with Windows Movie Maker.  David Jakes and others prefer PhotoStory and of course Mac users love iMovie. PowerPoint, Audacity and various image video editing tools are possible tools for digital storytelling.

I’m going to focus on Movie Maker and PhotoStory. I would have likely focused solely on PhotoStory but because my participants are wanting some experience with video, Movie Maker is required. Also, Miguel made a great case for Movie Maker because of the ease of audio recording and editing right within the program, negating the use for another audio editor. (their approach also is about oral storytelling, so there is no written script)

The Pedagogy: 

Miguel’s oral storytelling approach, really interests me but I think I need more time and expertise to pursue that. Also, I know many groups including the story center, focus exclusively on personal narratives. These are powerful and will be the approach for the day 2 project but I think it’s also important to discover academic or content stories. These will be done with the day 1 projects.

I’ll likely piddle away at it between now and Monday and also try and create a decent introduction. Miguel asked me to record it so hopefully I’ll remember. If you have any other ideas, comments or suggestions, either drop them off here or over at the wiki.

Found this via Stephen Downes. It didn’t embed as nicely as I’d hope so I had to resort to my vPIP plugin.

Play Flash version

I’m going to offering a 2 day workshop this summer on digital storytelling. I’ve done similar sessions before but focused more on specific applications. This time the focus will be on the process. Piggy backing on the fine work that’s out there,(Joe Lambert, Bernajean Porter, and others) I’ll be trying to help teachers understand the power of digital storytelling across the curriculum.

In addition to discussing the various tools, I want to show them the process that in some ways is very simple and yet when done well can be challenging. I wanted to once again walk through the experience of storytelling and so I created this story as a tribute to my Dad.

• It begins with an idea….looking at tangible evidence of how my father has influenced me.
• This translates to a written script.
• I collect assets….photos, music, video
• I record my script
• Insert the assets in the appropriate spots in the timeline
• Add motion to images to create a more compelling message

For my project I used Pinnacle Studio 10 but the tool isn’t as important as the message. Hopefully I’ll have as positive an experience as Miguel has had.

This one’s for you Dad.
2:30 (3.5MB)

 

 I Love Father's Day: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (559)

Discovered this one via Brent Mackinnon.

[rockyou 23617784]

Kinda cool.

I’ve been a fan of Cliff Atkinson for the better part of a year. Cliff’s Beyond Bullets book and blog have been helpful in transforming my view of PowerPoint as a storytelling tool and in turn changed how I present it to students and teachers.

Recently Cliff was hired by a Texas lawyer to develop a presentation for his opening statement. The resulting 253 slides helped to gain a $253 million dollar settlement.  Read the LA times article here.