Digital Story

Reflection on the creation of my Digital Story

o Why is this story worth telling: what does it contribute to student learning?

I decided to tell this particular story, as it addresses a specific learning outcome for a Chemistry 11 course:
E1: Describe the development of the model of the atom.
Describe changes in the model of the atom as a result of the work of Dalton, Rutherford, Bohr.
This topic (the model of the atom) is touched upon throughout the Sciences from grade 7 to 12, so I thought this was a valuable topic to embark upon, as it will be usable across levels.

o What’s your pedagogical rationale for doing this?

My pedagogical rationale for doing this is to cover a relatively non-interactive topic via a more interesting presentation style. Typically, this topic, as well as other similar topics in the Chemistry course(s), would be covered in lecture-style note-taking, or as a textbook reading assignment. Introducing the students to a different presentation style would hopefully garner their attention and perhaps engage them more with the content. It also opens the doors for students to review material in a different way, giving rise to the possibility of students being able / being asked to re-present information in an interactive way.

o 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.

I purposefully selected Prezi to tell my story, after investigating several of Alan Levine’s ways of telling a story.

I had tried out the Voicethread option, (and actually started creating my digital artifact there) but didn’t feel that this tool would be best used for my particular topic choice. I have used Voicethread in previous MET courses, and liked its features, however, allowing for comments on the Scientists’ lives in a voicethread application wasn’t a relevant use of that feature. In this case I would have ended up using Voicethread more as a video lecture tool.

I also started creating on Empressr. I did like that this replaced my ‘failsafe way’ of digital media production (so far), which is usually to create slides in powerpoint, capture as video and then edit slides, sound (music) and voiceovers in iMovie, before exporting for sharing. Empressr could do all of that in one application, albeit a little less polished, and really end up looking like a more polished powerpoint. I would keep this tool in my toolbox for future consideration.

I was very interested in xtimeline. Although I saw some impressive creations on xtimeline, and could see the possibility of embedding videos for each Scientist, I also saw this as a huge undertaking. This will be a great tool for future projects, but I saw that the narrative story telling would be a small subtle part of the entire xtimeline creation, and I didn’t want to get caught up in the creation of the timeline itself for this project.

I finally decided on Prezi. It has been on my MUST DO list since September 2009. I must say that my first Prezi attempt in 2009 was just a series of text-laden slides, but I never abandoned the hope that I could go back one day and create an interesting Prezi. So, after perusing Alan Levine’s list, and giving an honest effort to start creating on several of them, I ended up back at Prezi.

The functionality of the Prezi is great for my purpose. I liked that I could learn how to insert video, so that there would be some sound associated with my Prezi. I also liked how, in the narrative story telling of each Scientist, the student could set their own pace, and retrace their steps in my Prezi, re-reading as much as they liked and directing themselves through the presentation.

I found the options limitless in Prezi. I could have kept on editing and changing the layout, changing the images, and even changing the story. I could have worked on the graphics to make the zoom out view more esthetically appealing. But I wanted to tell a specific “story”, so I had a certain path and goal in mind. I can see how in other topic areas of my teaching, I could play a lot with the presentation style and layout of Prezi to create a multitude of digital artifacts that would in fact look and play much differently from one another.

Another functionality that really appeals to me is the never-ending editing that can occur in Prezi. I can go back and change any image, any text, I can add content, and delete content. If my Youtube links break, it is a very quick fix to insert an image in their place. I can extend the story. I can elaborate on any portion of the presentation in a matter of minutes, and the edited version is viewable immediately.

I could download my Prezi to my desktop in case I needed to present while offline.

I think that this is a tool that will endure (for me) in the long run and the presentation will be usable in my practice, whether in its current form, or as future iterations, for many classes and years to come. The creations can be set public for sharing, which means I can allow others to use my Prezi for their classes.

o What are the strengths of a storytelling approach? What are the limitations?

The strengths of the storytelling approach is that you can make the content far more interesting than the ‘turn to p. 285 of your textbook’ method, which is usually how this content would be covered in the Chem 11 course (and junior Sciences as well). Also, since Chem 11 is by no means a history course, I could choose, via storytelling, to tell interesting factoids, while still delivering the intended message, which is precisely what each of the three scientists contributed to the model of the atom.
The ability of students to set their own pace and repeat parts of the presentation as they need to, is also a great strength of this approach.

The limitations are that you could find yourself telling a lot more of the story. To keep the presentation concise enough to hold interest, yet informative enough to impart all the content was challenging. Overloading the Prezi with too much text would detract from the appeal and lose the attention of the students.
If I was trying to cover a different learning outcome (like explaining the sub-atomic structures of atoms) then I think the story telling approach would not be the right tool. Instead, the Prezi would turn out to be trumped up lecture notes, delivered as a sort of video.

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

I could see the use of this type of presentation, and many of the other of the 50 ways to tell a story, for my own teaching. I see limitless opportunities to present information in a variety of ways –even, and especially, in a typically didactic subject such as abstract Chemistry – but more importantly, to not have to tell the whole story, but instead to use my digital artifact as a springboard for students to take the helm and guide the narrative and complete any research that must occur in order to be able to “tell the story.”

I could also cover other learning outcomes in that same Chemistry course with this story telling tool:
E3: Describe the development of the modern periodic table (work of Mendeleev; ordering of elements in early and modern periodic table)

E4: Draw conclusions about the similarities and trends in the properties of the elements, with reference to the periodic table (melting point, ionization energy atomic radius, chemical reactivity, ion charge, conductivity)

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

As evidenced in my closing video, I am encouraging the students to take on the story telling role and give their interpretation of how a Scientist of their choosing influenced the model of the atom. Of course, in an actual classroom assignment, I would give students more direction and a rubric and criteria, but I wanted to leave this version more generic, so as not to bog down my Digital Story for this course.

Interestingly, the Terms of Service for Prezi came up in a discussion thread in this course during this past week.
It was noted that the Prezi Service is intended for those who are at least 18 years old – or those who have obtained the consent of a parent or guardian. Although this sounds exclusionary to my secondary school clientele, the same privacy policy goes on to explain:
“Prezi is committed to protecting the privacy of children and has no intention of collecting personal data from minors. We encourage parents and guardians of minors to regularly check and monitor their children’s use of email and other activities online.”
And also:
“If we learn or have reason to suspect that a user of the Prezi Service is under age 13, we will promptly delete any personal information in that user’s account.”
Clearly, the Terms of Service encourages parental and teacher supervision and participation, especially for those students under the age of 13. For those cases where using Prezi would still not be possible for my students, I think that any of the other 50 ways to tell a digital story would be a great way for students to implement online authoring tools.

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

The impact that I am hoping for is that by introducing a topic this way, I can use it as a catalyst for future creations that my students will undertake. They will transfer much more knowledge this way. Student creations can be used in future classes and courses to motivate and inspire the next class of students to create.

Resources
Alan Levine. (2007). “50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story.” Accessed 25 March 2009. http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools