1. Free: Although some “premium” features require a fee.
2. Space: no software to download, or storage of finished product.
3. Ease of use: attractive interface, simple steps.
4. Style: Choice of templates and styles.
How did the tool impact the manner in which you told your story (perhaps in a way that is different had you just used text or related the story using your voice)?
Unlike other students who chose non-linear story tools (eg. prezi.com or google maps), the linear format of a onetruemedia.com montage lends itself to amore traditional, sequential story. Because my story, “5 steps to natural selection” requires sequential thinking, this format was fitting. On limitation of the tool I used, is the lack of narration tool. I would have liked to narrate the text slides to provide a more multi-sensory experience to viewers.
How might you use such tools in your own teaching to produce materials for students?
I had fun producing my short explanation of natural selection, and could produce many of these for the plethora of processes that I teach in science. However, I see the strength in digital story telling in having students produce their own explanations. The process of “translating” concepts into stories forces learners to consider their own learning and engage in meta-cognition.
How might students be given access to the same authoring tools?
Minimum requirements would be computer and internet access. Also, they would probably require time outside of class to work on their stories. However, the creativity of productions could be greatly increased by the students having access to digital cameras.
What kind of impact would you expect to see in your students in terms of motivation, creativity, or any other characteristics?
My students really enjoy opportunities to be creative. Many students are using photo story tools to share photos socially. It would be novel for them to use these very same tools for a school assignment. The templates and auto-editing features allow them to produce semi-professional looking presentations, lending to motivation and pride.
To create this digital story, I used an online application called “One true media” (http://www.onetruemedia.com). One true media is an online tool that allows you to combine photos, video clips, and music to create montages. I originally chose this tool to create my story because the software does not need to be downloaded (space on my computer is at a premium). Additionally, I was attracted to the clean looking interface, with a simple “3 step” process to creating a montage. The process did prove to be simple and for the most part, I was very pleased with my tool choice.
Affordances:
1. Graphics: For the graphics, I was able to easily upload CC photos available on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com). Alternatively, you can upload photos and video clips from any URL or, directly from your computer.
2. Audio: One true media has an extensive library of music available, but songs can be uploaded as well.
3. Text: You are able to create “text slides” to intersperse with your photos.
4. Design: A selection of “styles” are available that provide a template of transitions and graphics to add “wow” factor to your montage.
5. Sharing: The finished project can easily be embedded in blogs or directly posted to YouTube/Google video.
Limitations:
1. Not entirely “free”: Although the tool is free, there are certain “premium” options that are only available for a fee. These premium options include certain desirable templates and font options for text slides.
2. No narration option: There is no tool to add narration to the montage. As far as I can tell, I would have to record my narration with Garage Band, save as a “song” and then upload the audio to “one true media”.
Conclusion:Simple, easy and enough “wow” to keep students’ attention for 2 minutes. Because the purpose of my digital story, “ Natural selection in 5 simple steps” was to be simple and succinct, one true media was sufficient to produce it. Although I did not feel limited by not using the premium options, I did feel limited by not being able to add narration to the story.
B. Application in my practice:
On February 2, 2009 I attended a “technology” themed professional development session featuring Jason Ohler (http://www.jasonohler.com) as the keynote speaker. His lecture discussed using digital technology to help students tell stories. Jason Ohler advocates using digital story telling as an approach to literacy. Ohler writes:
“Being literate in a real-world sense means being able to read and write using the media forms of the day, whatever they may be. For centuries, consuming and producing words through reading and writing and, to a lesser extent, listening and speaking were sufficient. But because of inexpensive, easy-to-use, and widely available new tools, literacy now requires being conversant with new forms of media as well as text, including sound, graphics, and moving images. In addition, it demands the ability to integrate these new media forms into a single narrative, or “media collage,” such as a Web page, blog, or digital story.” (Ohler 2009)
Moreover, Ohler discusses the role of the instructor.
“As our students migrate to new media, we must blend the essential aspects of more traditional media with the offerings of new forms of media. While students may be tech savvy, I have found that they often need help navigating the new-media maze to create narrative that is coherent, relevant, and meaningful, regardless of the media they use. Thus our role as instructors is more important than ever.” (Ohler 2009)
“I feel inspired to create an assignment for my students where they use digital technology to create stories about the various topics we are covering (e.g. circulatory system). This would be an alternative to an assignment that I normally would do where the students simply write and recite their stories. Some concerns I have is the availability of the hardware and time necessary to complete this type of assignment.”
I felt inspired by digital story telling because the practice is consistent with pedagogical principles. For example digital story telling fosters the learner and knowledge centered environments reccommended in Anderson (2008).
1. Learner centered: Anderson describes a learner centered environment where “a teacher makes efforts to gain an understanding of students’ prerequisite knowledge,including any misconceptions that the learner starts with in their construction of new knowledge. Further, the learning environment respects
and accommodates the particular cultural attributes, especially the language
and particular forms of expression that the learner uses to interpret
and build knowledge.” Digital story telling allows students to showcase their unique talents, skills, and knowledge constructs, while working through, and developing new ones. Moreover, the students interpretation of new concepts is displayed in the production, allowing the instructor to pick up on potential misconceptions.
2. Knowledge centered: According to Anderson (2008), “In a knowledge centered environment, students get the opportunity to reflect upon their own thinking; automacy is a useful and necessary skill for expert thinking, but automacy without reflective capacity greatly limits learners’ capacity to transfer their knowledge to unfamiliar contexts or to develop new knowledge structures.” I already employ “translation” activities frequently in my practice. In these translation activities, I ask the student to “translate” new knowledge into another form. For example, they can turn the new information in to a skit, poem, song, drawing, comic etc. Rather than just memorizing the information, students must reflect on their learning. I find that when the students have to actually think about what they have learned, they develop deeper knowledge constructs than from rote memorization. Digital story telling is just one more option I can add to my repertoire of “translation” options. Moreover, using digital technology may motivate my students as the production have “wow” factor.
My original concerns about digital story telling after the Jason Ohler session surrounded organizing the cameras, computer and software I thought were necessary to produce a digital story. After completing this assignment however, I have learned that expensive equipment is not necessary. Although cameras are required to produce original works, there are many free CC resources available for students to rip, remix and burn. I feel much more confident and prepared to include digital story telling in my practice.
Citations:
Anderson, T. (2008). Towards a Theory of Online Learning. In: Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and Practice of Online Learning. Athabasca University.
Ohler, J. (2009). New Media Literacies. Academe, June 2009. Published by the American Association of University Professors.
I am glad to have both contribuited to a wiki this week, as well as undertake the wiki tool kit activity. Besides considering the affordances and challanges of incoprporating a wiki in to my teaching practice, it was interesting to have discovered the “discussion” section of wikipedia articles. I had never noticed this tab before. This “behind the scenes” look at what goes into collaboratively creating an article is perhaps as interesting as the article itself. These documents should be studied in a social anthropology study. Comments ranged from inquisitive to irrate.
I have worked collaboratively before on a wiki for a course assignment. In the previous case however, I was working with only two other people and we each prepared our own separate pages. As such, no one did any major changes on the others’ pages. This experience working on a wiki was different. The contributing group was much larger and we were all editing a single page. The advantage of this is each student contributed a small section, but we ended up with a large artifact documenting social media “sightings” and key challenges and strategies for implementing social media into education. Another advantage is that we were able to edit mistakes that the original contributor may have missed. Collaborating to produce a single artifact with many contributors and editors is not without it’s challenges though. A wiki is often edited by contributors separated by space and time leading to a number of issues. For example, there is an issue of consistency and voice in an artifact. When collaborating in this manner, the contributors need a way to communicate and make democratic decisions. In the wiki activity where we contribute 5 challenges and strategies, one student came up with the idea of puuting an “x” next to the submissions we would like to contribute to the “top 5” . The submissions with the most “x”s would become the final 5. Another issue is that whole contributions can be deleting or greatly modified by other users leading to feelings of frustration by the original author.
