Digital Story

Hi everyone here’s my Digital Storytelling Reflection finally!

My Digital Story:   HJ Cody School France Trip

Reflection on Digital Storytelling:

Fun activity! There were so many tools to choose from so I decided to primarily look for one that could house a large amount of photos.  I used Tabblo, a collage type tool that you can also change your presentation into a slideshow.  It’s quite a user friendly site except the slideshow option doesn’t show the text boxes that are added on the collage (which is the story) so I decided to stick with the original collage I created that included all the text instead of a slideshow.

Why is this story worth telling: what does it contribute to student learning? What’s your pedagogical rationale for doing this?

I am the France travel leader for my school and I have made my story for upcoming new travelers and parents. It showcases what to expect on our France tour since we typically tend to use the same itinerary with a few customizations made each time. I was fortunate to be able to use my own pictures from my previous France trips with the exception of the addition of a couple from Microsoft Clipart. Using my own pictures for the majority sure makes it easier to avoid copyright issues which is something we all need to keep in mind!

Many students are traveling for the first time when they join the school travel group to travel and tour around France.  First time travelers have many questions and have many anxieties.  Having this story available to my future travelers (parents and students), especially first time travelers, is vital.  It can essentially reduce their anxiety by showing them what to expect and preparing them for the trip without me having to hold their hand and explain it to each traveler separately.

Many of the tools have the ability to add video and audio to a story.  In the future, I may choose a tool that enables audio and video but my story didn’t require audio or video so Tabblo suited the needs of my project.  I can use any of these online tools to engage my students in active learning.  Creating, writing and telling stories no longer have to be boring laborious tasks.  It can be fun and exciting using technology!

Teaching students using the same “virtual language” they speak can truly motivate them to continue their responsibilities in learning while engaging them in active learning.  By providing dynamic online learning experiences, students will have the ability to create high levels of multi-dimensional educational experiences in learning, knowledge, community, and assessment (Anderson, 2008).  With unlimited internet horizons, students will learn to be active life-long learners, acquire the necessary 21^st Century skills and be able to effectively teach themselves.

Why was this the right tool for you to use to tell your story? Explain how you purposefully selected your tool based on its functionality and your requirements.  How did the tool impact the manner in which you told your story?

I no longer teach languages as of this fall, I am strictly high school math now and these tools would be so useful for teaching language lessons through stories in different engaging formats. So, instead I took the focus of my travel group.  I wanted to create something for my new group of travelers and parents in addition to my wiki website.  I wanted a visual way to communicate the trip experiences without having to stand in front of a group of people at a meeting and tell the trip details of what to expect on tour. 

At the beginning of this activity, I have to admit that I struggled big time trying to choose the right tool that could do what I needed.  After a few hours browsing and exploring many of the different tools, I realized I was taking the wrong approach.  I should have been using Bates & Poole’s SECTIONS model (2003) to evaluate my choices. I had narrowed my choice down to three: Tabblo, Toondoo, and Xtranormal.  So, upon reflecting on the SECTIONS model, I found that one of my initial top 3 choices, Tabblo ,was a good fit for what I needed to tell my story: ability to house a large amount of photos, text and no audio.  I didn’t feel that my story needed audio or video, so I didn’t need a tool that offered audio or video.  I think the pictures and captions do a pretty good job of describing the story.  Tabblo is a collage type tool that has picture caption option, text option and slideshow option.

• Students: We are teaching the Net-Gen and they are more comfortable learning without boundaries.  Classrooms with physical walls can no longer keep them engaged and interest in learning (Wesch, 2007).
• Ease of use: Tabblo is relatively easy to use for the purpose it serves.
• Cost: Tabblo is free, no gimmick, no 30 day trial.  It’s really 100% free! But, like many
  Web 2.0 tools, you do have to have to create a user account.  It’s quick and painless – then you can start creating!
• Teaching & Learning: Tabblo allows student to create a scrapbook story or slideshow with text and pictures to showcase their understanding of the learning concepts while using and learning many 21^st Century technology skills at the same time.
• Interactivity: Students can choose different layouts for their Tabblo, different background colors and text colors as well as choose whether or not they want to switch their Tabblo into slideshow format.  Students can choose the positioning of each picture and change it anytime.  You can also type any text in the picture caption or large text box. 
• Organizational Issues: I don’t see any organizational issues with using Tabblo in my classroom.  Our school division is supportive of and encourages teachers to incorporate technology and Web 2.0 tools into their lessons as often as possible as long as it matches curriculum and the purpose is pedagogically sound.
• Novelty: It is a new tool using technology so I anticipate that this alone would create the initial motivation and eagerness to try it!  From my experience, my students have loved the opportunity to go into the computer lab and do a different type of learning activities, anything different from the mundane regular pencil-paper assignments.  Primarily, I would be demonstrating the tool with explanation that sometime soon they would be completing an assignment using this or another Web 2.0 tool and that they would have class time to learn and play with the program.  If there are kids who have used this tool, they can be my resident experts and help the rest in class once we make it to the computer lab.
• Speed: The pictures upload quickly into Tabblo.  The site Tabblo creates a generic large Tabblo scrapbook page using the initial pictures you upload.  Any other pictures you upload, the site creates new Tabblos and you drag those pictures into your original, really very quick and easy.  You can complete a tabblo in the same amount of time it takes to upload the pictures.  It’s really that simple.  If you want to customize it, adding text, changing colors, positions of pictures, etc., it does take a bit longer but a fun creation process.

How might you use such tools in your own teaching to produce materials for students?

Many of the tools can be used to produce teaching materials.  And, students can revisit their work, review and study online anytime, anywhere as long as they have internet access.  For example, I can create engaging and exciting videos and cartoons to introduce abstract math concepts.  Math doesn’t have to be boring!

I plan on using digital storytelling tools like Tabblo in my classroom and perhaps a few others that I would like to experiment more with this summer such as:  Xtranormal, Toondoo, Imageloop and Prezi  just to name a few.  I’m already thinking of ways I can incorporate these tools into my lessons.  For starters, I’m going to create a Toondoo for my math course outlines to liven up the boring course outlines and give my students a taste of what is to come.

How might students be given access to the same authoring tools?

Most tools are free but some of the tools require users to create an account.  So, in class, I would post and embed the link provided by the web tools we’re exploring on my class weblog, wiki, and/or Moodle.  That way, students would be able to access the authoring tools online anytime they want providing they have internet access. I would make a point of only choosing about 5 or 10 of the tools for my students to explore, the free ones requiring no extra fees.  Any more than 10 is just too overwhelming because of the wide variety of choices.

What kind of impact would you expect to see in your students in terms of motivation, creativity, or any other characteristics?

I definitely think students will be motivated and engaged since I’m introducing a new tool, whether it be Tabblo or another of my favourites.  Math is sometimes quite boring.  It would be great to bring math alive using these tools – learning math and problem solving at the same time as having fun using technology – what a concept!

Many kids also hate math so any way to engage them, keep their attention and even make them laugh, I’m going to try it!  My students loved Vokis, I can’t wait to introduce them to lots of these exciting tools!  Lots of fun to be had exploring all these cool tools!  My mind is bubbling over with creative ideas and that’s something for me since I’m not the most creative person – no natural talent here – lol!  But with these tools in my belt, I CAN become creative and so can my students!  Finally there’s tools out there for non-creative people like me that can teach us and make us look good at the same time!

Using personal pictures in my travel Tabblo and sharing the story of my fear of heights while standing at the top of the Eiffel tower helps bring a personal feel to the story that my students will hopefully relate too – especially those who are scared of heights.  Hopefully this will ease some anxieties and motivate some nervous travelers to join the tour!  I can also see this travel Tabblo being a popular exemplar for my travelers.  I predict that they will want to learn the Tabblo tool or one like it to scrapbook their photos when we return home.

What are some of the key issues or ideas that emerged for you when you were crafting your own story or viewing/hearing/reading the stories of your peers? In other words, what are the strengths and limitations of a storytelling approach?

Strengths

The vast array of tool choices and the many ways in which it can be done.  Depending on your audience, and what kind of story you want to tell, there are all kinds of cool ways to tell it. It can also be a way to add a  personal connection or expression into your work while learning and using different 21^st Century Skills.

Limitations

One of the biggest issues I think is finding the right tool to tell your story!  I spent hours exploring before I found one that I really liked for my purpose.  I liked many other tools for different purposes which I hope to explore more later when I have more time.

Secondly, finding the appropriate resources and abiding by copyright rules.  This can take hours, I was fortunate enough this time that my story used my own personal pictures; other projects have had me searching for hours.

Another limitation is that the tool you may want to use and the story you want to tell don’t always match up… sometimes one may overtake the other or you have to change the idea all together.  But this process also gets the creative juices flowing.

Specifically, with Tabblo, I did find it difficult to “share” my work though using this site as well – maybe it’s just me – unsure?!  This took some time to figure out and play around with.  I had to save my creation to a pdf to be able to upload to my blog.  It has an embed code but I couldn’t find where to embed this on my blog so I stuck with the pdf format.  I’m still unsure if you can add audio (which would have been a  nice addition – but not necessary for my needs) – I didn’t find any way to do it.  I might have missed something though?!

Conclusion

Teaching and learning in the 21^st Century have changed.  In order to reach and engage the Net Generation we need to incorporate the skills they already possess and expand and refine those skills to make learning meaningful for them. This means embracing technology and the many teaching tools available rather than being an ostrich and sticking our head in the sand hoping this “technology phase” will blow over!

Video: Learning to Change, Changing to Learn
I found this video very fitting for my reflection!

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a Theory of Online Learning. Athabasca University. Accessed online 18 July 2009 http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008_Anderson-Online_Learning.pdf

Bates, A. & Poole, G. (2003). Chapter 4: a Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success. (pp.77-105). San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.

Consortium for School Networking COSN(2009). Learning to change, changing to learn. Pearson Foundation International Conference on Education. Retrieved October 6, 2009, from http://www.pearsonfoundation.org/pg5.6.html

Wesch (2007). A vision of students today. Accessed online 18 July 2009 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLIGopyXT_g

Photo References for my Tabblo

Personal Collection of Evonne Tutkaluk

Microsoft Clipart