Digital Story
Here is the link to my digital story created with Prezi: What is a Curriculum Coordinator?
This piece is a complex story as it is educational, part lesson, and a story. This assignment was a great exercise as it gave me the opportunity to concisely describe what curriculum is at SAIT Polytechnic and describe what I do as a Curriculum Coordinator in a story telling format. Quite often people ask me what I do and after about 45 seconds they start to drift off and the subject quickly changes to something more interesting. I usually just say I am an Administrator at a Post-Secondary School. Now I can send them the link to my story.
This assignment had several components including selecting the appropriate tool, finding creative commons images, writing the script and story line, and creating the videos. Selecting the right tool was a challenge with so many to choose from. I wanted to use my voice to narrate the story so I started to explore some video tools. Yodio seemed like a reasonable choice as it could create a video from images, text and voice recordings. Limitations around how voice recordings were handled in Yodio turned out to be a weakness in this application instead of the strength that I wanted. Despite my frustration, many reworkings and eventual abandonment of the Yodio approach, I managed to improve on the story before I implemented plan “B”, Prezi.
I had seen many Prezi’s previously and was never attracted to it as the constant movement seemed to me to be the buzz rather than the content or the story. After viewing the Demo videos, it seemed user friendly so I decided to give it a try. I must admit that I had a lot of fun putting this story together in Prezi because of its ease of use and instant results allowed me to be creative rather frustrated fighting with the application as happened with Yodio.
Prezi allowed me to quickly and easily move my story line from a Word document to each slide along with my preselected images. It is loosely structured so that everything did not need to be standardized such as image sizes. It was easy to connect the slides or modify them on the fly or change the order. As far as the buzz goes, if done carefully and purposefully then it can be integrated into the story to add to the story. In Yodio my story looked pretty mundane in a logical sequence.
This story is now a useful tool that I can use to quickly demonstrate what a Curriculum Coordinator does at SAIT. The audience will be new Curriculum Coordinators and the people that work with Curriculum Coordinators: Academic Chairs, Earned Revenue Coordinators, Deans and many other Administrators across campus.
From Bates and Poole’s (2003) SECTIONS perspective, this tool measures up well.
This presentation is suitable for the people (students) who will view this story; Coordinators, Managers and Administrators such as Academic Chairs, Curriculum Coordinators and Deans.
Prezi was easy to use to create the story and is equally easy to view. One drawback is the full screen mode is hidden under the “More” function.
The cost is scalable. I created the story under a free educational license, however there are more advanced features available in the versions that charge an annual fee
Prezi was easy to use so the creator can focus on the learning and the messages that they want to delivery.
Prezi is interactive and can be run in manual mode where the user advances to the next slide when ready or played in auto mode. In auto mode how ever the videos only play for 4 seconds before it advances to the next slide. Prezi does have the functionality of allowing users to provide comments.
There seems to be few organizational issues, although the information is stored on the cloud rather on a secure in house institutional server.
This application is novel as it is new technology and has a lot of features that permit the user to be very creative.
It is speedy to create a presentation or story because of the ease of use, ability to quickly upload different media and it is easy to edit with.
References
Bates A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. In A.W. Bates & G. Poole, Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education (pp. 75-108). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 4.
Image Sources
Classroom with students
http://www.flickr.com/photos/velkr0/3472576304/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by velkr0
Wikipedia
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nojhan/3204073130/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by nojhan
Chariot race 1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rikdom/2377505140/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by rikdom
Curriculum drives technology
http://www.flickr.com/photos/superkimbo/3318904030/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by superkimbo
Concrete puzzle pieces
http://www.flickr.com/photos/donshall/5221545843/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by origamidon
Hands
http://www.flickr.com/photos/susanvg/3382838948/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by susanvg
Nuts
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steffenz/2080578170/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by steffenz
Hands on keyboard
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lapideo/198046070/sizes/z/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by lapideo
Buses meeting
http://www.flickr.com/photos/glimeend/5519199671/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by Jesper2cv
watch
http://www.flickr.com/photos/roach/1260001846/
Some rights reserved by Improbable Roach
Running squirrel
http://www.flickr.com/photos/talou/3598741328/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by pguimier
Geese flying
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bryanto/3229839659/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by Fool-On-The-Hill
Curriculum design
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ag-energy-extension/5829100566/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by eXtension Ag Energy
Women at desk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/phildowsing/2366516918/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by Phil Dowsing Creative
Office worker arrows
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76029035@N02/6829404047/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by Victor1558
Puzzle pieces question
http://www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/4273913966/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by Horia Varlan
Project Management meeting
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iscteiul/5374718747/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
Two people Laptop
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohioseagrant/5567823961/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by Ohio Sea Grant and Stone Laboratory
e-learning
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lcfshortcourses/6424418657/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by London College of Fashion short courses
Disneyland castle
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shewbridge/4686645942/sizes/o/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by William Shewbridge
Your fired
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maisonbisson/3350955033/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by misterbisson
Laugh and Cry
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035796522@N01/111091247/sizes/l/in/photostream/
Some rights reserved by Fifi LePew
E-portfolio assignment #5 digital story
Create a complex digital story, educational in nature, using one of a range social media. Your story must:
- Meet the overall quality of work standards listed above
- Be educational
- Be a story–not a digital lesson or lecture
- Be viewable either as an embedded file or a link on the Story page of your e-portfolio
- In addition to the embed/link of the story itself, describe the following on the Story page:
- Why was this the right tool for you to use to tell your story, particularly from a pedagogical perspective?
- How did you purposefully select this for your storytelling tool?
- How does this story work within a course that you teach (or would like to teach) using sound pedagogical arguments?