Digital Story

Here is my Digital Story. It was done with Tikatok.

Pedagogical Rationale

This story will be the model for an activity that I will conduct with my new grade 6/7 class when school resumes in September. I will introduce my model and then instruct students to create their own story. Using a personal story as a model will allow nervous grade 6 students who are new to middle school to become acquainted with me and to feel more relaxed with me as their teacher. It will also help students understand the outcome of the activity and feel establish a comfort level that will allow them to share their own story. Using my digital story as a starting point to have students create a story about themselves meets learning outcomes from both Health and Career Education and Language Arts. The program that I chose for this activity is Tikatok. It is software that creates a storybook where the pages turn when you click on them. I feel that Tikatok provides a fun way to get to know students while assessing prior writing skills and teaching elements of story writing.

The right tool

When I was exploring the many options of tools to create my story of Marvin, I established a list of criteria to meet the technology requirements necessary to complete my project. I wanted to find a medium that allowed for differentiation, ease of use, and motivation. I feel that these important aspects were all met with the Tikatok software.

Differentiation – I have a very diverse class with learners that enter at very different writing levels. Because of this spread, I need a tool that will allow the gifted learners the freedom to move into their zone of proximal development while still scaffolding the writing of other students by providing a structure that they can follow. Tikatok meets this criteria with its pre made template options. For a getting acquainted project, kids can choose a template that leads them to tell a story about their summer or to do a book about themselves. The templates are clear and easy to follow and students can modify them without restrictions. The program also provides a blank book option where more confident writers can create a story that is entirely their own, complete with background and formatting.

Ease of Use – Since my focus here is on writing and HaCE learning outcomes, the emphasis is not on students learning how to use a difficult computer program. I want kids to understand the program quickly and move past that to focus on the actual story writing component of the project. Tikatok is an intuitive program that will be quick and easy to learn. There is choice and freedom in how to write and format work but the basic building blocks of the books are consistent throughout the program. You can insert either a relatively easy to use text box for writing or a picture box where you upload saved pictures from your computer and/or choose pictures from the Tikatok site. Because the software is set up using only the two types of boxes, it is easy for the students to learn.

Motivation – The ease of use and ability to work with a comfortable level of structure will allow students the freedom to write a story that is meaningful to them. Creating a personalized narrative establishes a feeling of ownership of both the learning and the content so they will be motivated to do a good job. They can individualize their work even more by uploading their own pictures and choosing from the backgrounds available to create a polished product that they will be proud to show to others.

One aspect that I discovered when I began trying out the software was the ‘verification charge’. In order for me to embed my storybook on my blog, the website required me to input a credit card number and charged me a $1.00 verification fee. I am not sure if this is because I opened up a teacher account or if they would charge each student $1.00 as well. Using software that students need to pay for is not acceptable in my district so this detail would need to be addressed before I would decide to use this site with my students.

Strengths and Limitations of Digital Storytelling

The art of storytelling has been passed down throughout the many generations of human history. It has remained prevalent in most world cultures throughout time because of its wide appeal. Even today, we tell stories through radio, books, and movies. Digital storytelling is an effective teaching tool because it uses multimodal forms to represent meaning. It also uses a narrative to connect the author and readers to the events in the story. This connection between author, reader and plot enhances motivation and deep thinking (Sadik 2008; Robin, 2010). When students write their own digital stories, they are required to construct meaning by creating a narrative to make sense of a concept (Sadik, 2008). This helps learners to fully understand the topic, synthesize the information and present it in a meaningful way (Sadik, 2008; Ware & Warschauer, 2005). It is important to maintain a focus on writing during the process of creating a digital story and, with this focus, digital storytelling teaches traditional research and writing skills along with multimodal literacy skills (Sadik, 2008).

There are, however, limitations to digital storytelling. Most notably, the time involved in creating a digital story can limit its usefulness. Ware & Warschauer (2005) note that although digital storytelling provides deep, connected learning, finding and creating meaningful images takes time and the project may not cover enough academic content to warrant it (Ware & Warschauer, 2005). This may be true for more in depth projects but this problem can be avoided in the Tikatok project that I am proposing. Since the Tikatok software doesn’t allow writers to use video, the process of finding media is narrowed down. Limiting the time available for gathering pictures and being clear that the focus is on writing outcomes from the beginning of the project should result in a timely project that meets the outlined learning outcomes.

Robin, B. (2008). Digital storytelling: A powerful technology tool for the 21st century classroom. Theory into Practice, 47(3), 220-228

Sadik, A. (2008). Digital storytelling: a meaningful technology-integrated approach for engaged student learning. Educational Technology Research and Development, 56(4):487-506. doi: 10.1007/s11423-008-9091-8

Ware, P. & Warschauer, M (2005) Hybrid literacy texts and practices in technology-intensive environments. International Journal of Education Research 43(7-8) 432-445