My two digital stories

As I was trying to decide what to do and what software to use, I came across Storybird and used it to illustrate a storybook using Maya Angelou’s poem, The Caged Bird. It is a beautiful tool and I shared it with my colleagues at school. The grade 8 teacher loved it and when I suggested I use it with one of my special education students to create a poem she said agreed. What a wonderful experience. This young man is on the autism spectrum and he is diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability but he easily created a beautiful repetition poem following the same instructions the rest of the class did. What a fabulous tool for differentiated instruction. It definitely demonstrates how “media and technology can help accommodate these differences” (Bates, 2014, s. 8.2.1), meaning the differences within the classroom. Thank you Natasha for introducing it to me.

I didn’t really feel the above met the criteria of the assignment, however, so I also created a comic strip to demonstrate onomatopoeia. This was a lot of fun and a great way to show this literary device. The comic strip tool I used was Pixton, available at www.pixton.com, and I chose it because our school board is now using it but I haven’t had the time to familiarize myself with it so this was the perfect opportunity! I used some of my own images, some that are part of the program, and even included a sound bite. I think if I could have so much fun with an activity like this then my students would too. As we know, engagement is very important in learning tasks (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005, p. 8). This is also another great tool for differentiation. I would allow students to have the opportunity to choose this tool to demonstrate their work and my comic could be a model for them. As an assessment tool it would be engaging and familiar to students. Many students read graphic novels these days and would be familiar with the look of a comic strip. While I want students to have variety and choice in their tools, I also want them to use tools that are familiar to them.

Overall, I really enjoyed this assignment. Initially I struggled to find an appropriate digital story to fit into my unit of study but ultimately I am happy with the two results I created.

References

• Bates. T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/5-8-assessment-of-learning/
• Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students’ learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf