One of the recent tasks on the adventure through ETEC 565 has been to create a story using social software. Thus, the images are real, or at least the ones I elected to use (alarm clock from Alan Cleaver), but they have been drawn together from the various ethereal connections of the web. A wide range of possibilities was provided by Alan Levine at CogDogRoo from which we were recommended to explore a bit and then choose one. I examined a number and in the end settled on Slide. I elected to use Slide as it was simple and had links to social media sites such as facebook, twitter, and flickr to draw upon resources there, one could also upload from their own computer if they chose. Images could easily be added and themes allowed for simple customization, with only a minor amount of time required to sign-up for a free account.
I elected for slide as it provided the opportunity for the simplest creation of a story, with limited text option. The limited text option forces the creator to elect images which can communicate information in a clear form, which can be bypassed if plenty of text or audio options are available. The potential for stories and information to be presented in a simple graphic manner, means that less distractions are present and provide students with opportunities to formulate ideas based upon what is in front of them rather than based upon what is written or said; “Tabula rasa”-esque. These types of tools could work well both for introducing a new topic or concept or conversely as review type tools, where students provide information based upon images and the links to the content they have learned.
Even better than having a concept produced for them would be to provide the students with the same opportunities. While Levine’s list is quite long it may be wise to provide a smaller list of story telling tools so that the students were less drawn into exploring the tools and elected to spend more time creating a “story”. It would provide opportunities to discuss the use of copyrights, creative-commons, and internet-ethics/safety. Slide for example asks for access to facebook data, which students should learn the potential risks of. Having only to select images and small amounts of texts would allow students to focus on the larger ideas, many students are also already competent at finding imagery so this would draw upon strengths. I would expect to see a few more bells and whistles or distracting colors and themes from students, but this again is an opportunity to discuss what makes a quality presentation and why or why not to choose particular details.
Overall this was a very interesting exercise and there is any number of ways to use this in any number of class and subjects with varying degrees of complexity.