My digital story is worth telling because it reflects the current turmoil in public education. It provides hope for those institutions/districts for which funding is inadequate. Those of us passionate about public education need to invest our efforts and learning in the generation of students occupying our sites. The possibilities and environments for learning are changing and if public education is to remain viable so too must the facilitators of education, the purpose of education, and the offerings of education change.
As Lamb speaks to in his article, Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix (2007), one of the challenges when working with multimedia and the tools afforded to us in the 21st century is the challenge of originality. Able to choose from a plethora of, audio, video, images . . . that occupy the internet is stupendous yet at the same time, stressful. At this time I am only comfortable choosing media that is commonly available. Yet all over the web are examples of creations in which all manner of copyrighted and owned media has been transformed. What are the legalities of this and how do we ensure our students are responsible and crediting users of the creations of others? Will the rules of the game change as indicated by Jenkins in his UBC 2004 presentation?
VUVOX was the right tool for me because although a tool new to me, it contained many similar tools to those I have used in the past as well as a few tools new to my experience. This mix of familiar and not familiar does well by any student. There was no “frustration” while working with VUVOX yet there was challenge enough to promote learning. I selected this tool as it was “intuitive” and I could immediately begin to create. Included in my presentation could be multi forms of media.
From having viewed, listened to, and or read other stories presented by the cohort, I would now recognize, as strengths of digital storytelling, the ability to engage learners with a variety of media, the succinctness with which information can be delivered, and the high level of engagement of the offerings which leads to the learner retaining the information.
Lamb, B. (2007). Dr. Mashup; or, Why Educators Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Remix. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 42, no. 4 (July/August 2007): 12–25. Accessed online March 9 2009http://www.educause.edu/ER/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume42/DrMashuporWhyEducatorsShouldLe/161747
Henry Jenkins. “Spoilers, Bloggers, Modders and Thieves: Empowered Consumption in an Age of Media Convergence.” New Media Consortium Conference, 2004. UBC.
rtsp://cinema.arts.ubc.ca/Events/NMC2004/jenkins_stream.mp4
Denise, you’ve chosen some really powerful images to tell your story. I LOVE the pairing of ‘old’ and ‘new’ school in particular.