Adventures in MET Land

Digital Story.

Here is a copy of my digital story. Click on the image and it will take you to Picasa. Click on the High quality link at the top right hand corner of the movie to see it in a crisper form.




From Movies

If the above embedded link does not work, click here to see my digital story.

My Digital Story Reflection is placed at the end of this blog page after references.

Introduction

Digital Stories are usually first person narrative stories, told with the use of digital software applications (McLellan, 2006). Various applications are available to create slide shows, voice over presentations, movies, etc., for the telling of these stories. Selection of such applications is an important process. For this reason, Bates and Pool’s (2003) sections framework for selecting technology for educational purposes, and the National Educational Teacher Standards (NETS) (2008), were used as guides to select software for the telling of my story. My digital story will be used as an icebreaker for my face-to-face classes and my mock Chemistry 11 Moodle course to allow students to get to know their instructor.

Discussion

Selecting Media

Based on the above mentioned Bates and Pool’s (2003) sections framework and NETS (2008) technology standards, I selected Google’s Picasa to tell my amazing story of “Getting to know your Chemistry 11 Teacher”. The sections from Bates and Pools (2003) framework used to select Picasa were ease of use, interactivity, and cost.

Picasa is very easy to use. I downloaded the software from http://picasa.google.ca/, and within minutes was able to select pictures for my story (thus, satisfying Bates and Pool (2003) suggestion that easy to use technology should require less than 20 minutes to learn). It is hosted on the hard drive and it automatically locates computer folders containing photos. Picasa’s user interface is similar to Windows explorer view, making it familiar to navigate. Tagging or holding pictures in a holding area while looking at pictures from a single folder, or viewing all folder pictures within the main system window, allows for quick selection of pictures. The tagged or held photos can then be placed into a new photo album. Ordering pictures for a digital story within the newly created album is as simple as dragging and dropping them into sequence. Picture captions are just as easy – double click on the picture and add a caption. Digital natives, such as students, will find using Google’s Picasa simple and straight forward.

Picasa is quite interactive. Albums can be used to create slide shows, collages, movies, and geo-tagged maps. Images, albums, and movies can be synched between Picasa’s computer and web-based platforms, making it easier for users to track changes made between the platforms. Album slide shows can be created with a click of a button. However, it was noted that the Picasa’s computer platform allowed for more slide show options than did the web platform.

Creating a movie is also straight forward. A picture album is selected, a make a movie button clicked, and the album pictures appear in a timeline sequence. Additional slides can be inserted between pictures. Picture caption text can be altered and an auditory tract can be added. Movies can be uploaded to Youtube or stored as a flash file in the Picasa web album. Other interactive features include Picasa’s ability to share web albums and movies, make them private or public, and link or embed them into websites. Using the “private” feature permits only select viewers to see the media, allowing the user to feel safer about placing personal content onto the web.

Downloading and creating a Picasa web account is free. Picasa can be used on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems so that students running different operating systems can easily share photos. Google gmail users automatically have a Picasa web account and they can store up to 1 GB of photos/movies within their Picasa account.

The digital story, “Getting to Know Your Chemistry 11 Teacher”, was used as a tool to help students feel comfortable within the learning environment I am creating. It was also to model NETS (2008) standards of modeling digital age work/learning and promoting digital citizenship/responsibility.

Picasa allowed me to show students that, as an instructor, I am capable of using new and emerging technologies. I demonstrated digital responsibility by using personal pictures in my digital story, rather than stealing pictures from the web. Moreover, as Picasa allows users to add music and text slides to movies, I showed students that it is okay to use creative commons items from the web as long as they are properly referenced.

Overall Picasa was selected as the medium to tell my story because it was easy to use, gave multiple methods of telling the same story, can host private video, was free, and allowed me to show case to students that educators can use new technology in a responsible manner.

Student Digital Story Activity

Ohler (2006) describes digital stories as having three parts: a call to adventure, problem-solution involving transformation, and closure. Scientific lab reports can be considered third person stories. They contain a call to adventure in the form of an introduction, materials, and procedure; problem-solution involving transformation in the form of data/results and discussion; and closure in the form of a conclusion. Due to the similarities between scientific lab reports and digital stories, it seemed natural to have students create a digital lab report.

An assignment was created for my mock blended Chemistry 11 Moodle course. Prior to performing the lab within the classroom, students will be expected to:

• Form groups of three
• Read the lab procedure
• Learn how to create a digital story from Levine (2007) 50+ Web 2.0 ways to tell a story http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/50+Ways
• Read the digital story lab criteria
• Outline key times during the lab activity to take photos
  

After the lab activity and picture-taking is complete, students will use collaborative space, such as Google docs or a wiki space, to work together. They will have creative rights on which software applications to use for their digital story. The marking criteria are primarily based on students’ abilities to fulfill requirements of a lab report, and on course content.

Pedagogical Argument for Digital Stories In a Chemistry 11 Class.

In the world of Chemistry, lab activities and reports at the high school level should serve two major purposes. Firstly, the lab activity and report is a constructivist learning approach to introduce students to and synthesise course content into knowledge. Secondly, writing laboratory reports prepares students for higher academic scientific writing.

The traditional high school laboratory report writing method does not necessarily afford all students the ability to synthesize the course material. Moreover, students working in lab groups tend to divide up the report writing duties, diminishing the opportunities for both synthesis and learning the entire process. The introduction of digital stories will increase student involvement with laboratory write up processes, opportunities for reflection, and comprehension of course material. It will also foster a deeper sense of community.

Digital stories are fun and creative, and will increase student involvement in the laboratory process. Participants find the process more enjoyable than traditional methods of relaying information. At the University of British Columbia (UBC), first year science students are required to take a weekly “workshop”. One of the workshop activities is to produce a digital story about how their experience within a biology course changed their perception of either ecology or genetics. Students found the activity to be fun (Genereux &Thompson, 2008). Additionally, digital stories permit students to be more imaginative. They are given creative rights to tell their stories (with guided learning outcomes), and are free to work in a space that allows them to feel ownership of the material being taught (Leon, 2008). Fun activities, along with a sense of material ownership, will ultimately increase student involvement in the whole laboratory process. Reflection on the course material will naturally happen.

Reflection is an important tool for any learning environment. It is a pedagogical strategy that helps students better understand course content, and helps learners synthesize information into knowledge (Valkanova & Watts, 2007). Production of written material allows a single act of reflection, while reflection occurs at multiple points during digital story creation. Each new layer of medium being added to a story (i.e. pictures, music) presents an opportunity for reflection in that each medium must be evaluated and matched (Leon, 2008). Genereux and Thompson’s (2008) study asked digital story participants what they felt the best aspect of the activity was. They indicated the opportunities to reflect.

Digital stories have additional qualities, besides reflection, that help students learn course content. Leon (2008) indicated that digital story telling is a pedagogical approach that slows down students’ thought processes, when working on an assignment. Which to will allow for a deeper understanding and inquiry with the topic being covered. Digital story authorship encourages them to engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate what they are working on (Davison, 2009). Lastly, students gain valuable experience working with the course content when they engage in problem solving, self/group-direction, and personal/group initiative to complete the final product (McLellan, 2006). Communities of learners are created during digital story process.

Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994) indicated that students participating within communities of learning obtain a better understanding of course content than students who do not. Collaboration to solve software application issues (solving the problem of how do we create a digital story) helps create a community of learning (Benmayor, 2008). Additionally, Davison (2009) found the entire process of taking observations, creating, and watching digital stories with her grade 2 class (during a science activity) increased her class’ sense of community. To create a sense of community within my mock Chemistry 11 Moodle course, students will work in groups of three to create the digital lab. Groups will be encouraged to work with each other to solve software application issues (tell each other how to create a digital story).

Conclusion

While high school laboratory reports do consist of start-middle-end story components, digital stories are atypical formats for them. Currently, Chemistry 11 students do not synthesize much course information when writing their (traditional) reports. Digital stories will allow students to become more engaged with their learning by providing a fun and creative means to showcase information that would usually be contained within a written report.

References

Bates and Poole. (2003) A framework for selecting and using technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Pages 75 – 105.

Benmayor, R. (2008, January 1). Digital storytelling as a signature pedagogy for the new Humanities. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 7(2), 188-204. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ821238) Retrieved July 9, 2009, from ERIC database.

Davison, S. (2009, January 1). A picture is worth a thousand words. Science and Children, 46(5), 36-39. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ826993) Retrieved July 9, 2009, from ERIC database.

Genereux, A., & Thompson, W. (2008, July 1). Lights, camera, reflection! digital movies: A tool for reflective learning. Journal of College Science Teaching, 37(6), 21-25. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ802020) Retrieved July 9, 2009, from ERIC database.

Leon, S. (2008, January 1). Slowing down, talking back, and moving forward: some reflections on digital storytelling in the humanities curriculum. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education: An International Journal of Theory, Research and Practice, 7(2), 220-223. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ821240) Retrieved July 9, 2009, from ERIC database.

Levine, A. (2007, July 13). 50+ Web 2.0 ways to tell a story. Retrieved July 6, 2009, from Cogdogroo: Alan Levine’s october 2007 trip down under: http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/50+Ways

McLellan, H. (2007, September 1). Digital Storytelling in Higher Education. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 19(1), 65-79. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ830801) Retrieved July 9, 2009, from ERIC database.

National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers (Nets). (2008). Retrieved May 4, 2009, from
http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_for_Teachers_2008.htm

Ohler, J. (2006, January 1). The World of Digital Storytelling. Educational Leadership, 63(4), 44-47. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ745475) Retrieved July 9, 2009, from ERIC database.

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computer support for knowledge – building communities.  The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3(3), 265-283

Valkanova, Y., & Watts, M. (2007, August 1). Digital Story Telling in a Science Classroom: Reflective Self-Learning (RSL) in Action. Early Child Development and Care, 177, 793-807. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. EJ771137) Retrieved July 9, 2009, from ERIC database.

Digital Story Reflection

I will have to say that I enjoyed the digital story experience. I enjoyed looking at my old pictures to tell a story of my time overseas. By doing this act I was able to reminisce of the fun I had while teaching abroad.

I decided to use Google’s Picasa to tell my story. It is easy to use, interactive, allows for photos to be made private or public, and it is free. While Picasa is easy to use, it does have some draw backs which actually helped me in creation of my final project. I picked my photos, added captions, played around with caption fonts, and altered the slide show timing. Well, I uploaded the story album to the web and all of my edits to the slide show timing and caption fonts were lost. Being that other METTERS would see this, I wanted to make my work look better. I wanted more control as to what the final product looked like. I started to look into other programs that would give me more slide show control, but after some searching I learned that I could upload movies to my Picasa web account. I also learnt that Picasa can be used to create videos. I decided to showcase my work as a video. Picasa made it easy to create a timeline movie where text slides, movie clips, and music could be added in. Thus, my story turned into a movie.

I decided to tell my teaching abroad story as a means to illustrate to my future classes a bit about their instructor. I have found that by telling students a wee bit about your past experiences it helps to create repore with students. The better the teacher/student relationship is on a professional level the more enjoyable the class is for all class stakeholders (students, teachers, and parents (not that parents are in my class)). I can see using Picasa in the future to create exemplar digital presentations/labs for my science classes.

Last school year I had two students create digital story’s using pictures and voice to present information about nuclear power plants. They outlined to the class why a nuclear power plant should not be built on the school grounds. The physics class loved this method of presenting information. I can see giving students the option of creating digital stories to relay information as a class presentation assignment or as a digital lab. To create a digital lab, students will come to class with their cameras and will use the digital story concept to illustrate the information that is usually contained within a written report.

I do not see any issues in student accessibility in creating digital stories. The district I work in is quite affluent and nearly all of my students have access to computers at home or during my class. Many students, especially my computer immersion students, have created digital presentations in the form of movies for other classes.

When assigning digital labs to my junior classes I will go through the different software applications available to create a digital lab. I will instruct junior students on how to create a digital lab with Picasa. Students will then have creative rights on what digital device they wish to use to create their digital labs. As for senior students, I will take a more hands off approach. I will instruct students on what aspects, lab sections, their digital lab must contain. I will than point them towards Levine’s (2007) 50+ Ways to create a digital story website and inform them that they can ask me or other student’s questions as to how to go about creating their digital labs. By giving more freedom to senior students I hope the activity will help them build the critical skills required to succeed in future academic situations.

From seeing past students present science information as digital stories, I believe that students will appreciate this method of communicating information over the creation of PowerPoint’s or written reports. I can see students enjoying the creativity and novelty aspects of the assignment. Both junior and senior students will obtain a better understanding/synthesis of course knowledge and the lab/presentation writing process by the creation of digital labs/presentations.