My digital story highlights the life and times of a typical Praying Mantis, Mantis religiosa. For me, the most challenging aspect of this assignment was to narrow down a story: there were so many options! I work with mostly students in grades eleven and twelve and I wanted something both age appropriate and relative and, novel and engaging that could be used within my Biology class.
I created a very basic story line but one that has many biological conversation starters. The strategy of using a short story fits well with my classroom; I always begin my classes with a Warm Up activity. This is meant to introduce or reinforce a topic and it varies day to day with different dynamics, media and length. Having a short story to start off our class time is exactly the type of activity I would incorporate. I like this particular story because it has links to many aspects of our discussions including behaviour, anatomy, ecology, reproduction and classification.
There were many online programs available that could have been used to present my story. I chose the Vuvox Collage program for a number of reasons, not the least of which was its easy to use application. I love photography and wanted to use photos to tell my story, which Vuvox allowed me to do. Normally I would use my own photos for classroom materials but my catalogue of praying mantises was a little short ;). I also liked the panorama slide feel of the story. The program itself had a number of features – audio, video and cutting tools, that allowed what could have been a simple slide show presentation to become something a little more creative and engaging. Again, these tools were easy to use, however, I didn’t take advantage of all of the available tools. My goal was to have Another One Bites the Dust play at the end, but it became more time consuming than I had counted on. I played around with some tracks but, in the end, I wasn’t satisfied with the sound so I opted for a silent story.
From a teaching perspective, I can see this tool being used by both teachers and students. Vuvox has a wide range of applications, such as for creating collages, for telling stories or creating timelines, and it allows for a wide range of creative discretion. As a teaching tool, it is effective because it is not a static presentation and with the multimedia options, it caters to a variety of learning styles.
- Photos and Videos were collected through Creative Commons and credits are linked within the story.
- Vuvox… www.vuvox.com