Building Community
In a constructivist learning environment students work with their peers during all phases of the digital storytelling experience and therefore benefit from getting to know each other in low risk activities prior to sharing ideas for stories and offering and receiving constructive criticism. During the first week of the digital storytelling project students can meet informally by introducing themselves and participating in ice-breaking activities. This is also the time to establish ground rules to ensure that all students understand that the online classroom is a safe place to express ideas and interests.
Technical Issues
Students may not be aware of the equipment that they can use for creating digital stories. Linked lists of hardware and software options are provided under resources.
Be sure to survey students to determine who requires extra time to learn to use technology and which technology they require assistance with. Tutorials to assist students should be provided. These do not need to be created by the teacher as there are numerous helpful online instructional videos.
Remind students to backup their work on a regular basis. They can use an external hard-drive, save to a CD, or use cloud technology such as DropBox or iCloud.
Challenges
Ideas – Without first developing a good story, digital stories will not be successful. Students can borrow ideas from stories based on historical events or a favourite novel or poem, or they can tell personal stories. In each case students should be given adequate time to work with peers and brainstorm ideas, develop a draft of their story, and use their imaginations and creativity to write a script that is personally meaningful. It’s helpful to develop a classroom story starter or idea-bank.
Questions – When students critique each others work they need assistance asking effective questions. To aid them in asking questions that will lead to improved stories, they can use a teacher prepared self and peer evaluation form with guiding questions, or work from a question bank developed by class participants.
Crediting sources – All sources should be credited. Although it’s tempting to borrow from any internet source, students need to be directed to sites that allow public use of content. A lesson on Creative Commons sources and usage rights is beneficial. Students should be encouraged to create their own content including storyline, images, and music.
Time Management – Creating digital stories can be time consuming. The sample lesson plan suggests a seven week (six hour per week) time period for online visual arts students working with a partner to complete images and a digital story.