Digital Storytelling
My Story: Turtle’s Quest
Here is the story I have written. It is titled Turtle’s Quest. This is a the story of a young turtle who seeks an answer to the age old question, “Are you my teacher?”. It is influenced by text based sources and free photo sites.
- Are You My Mother by P.D. Eastman
- Web based Turtle Stories particularly with Aboriginal or historical connections
- Photos from 4FreePhotos, EduPic, and Pics4Learning.
Turtle’s Quest on PhotoPeach
Key Questions:
◦ Why is this story worth telling: what does it contribute to student learning?
This story is worth telling since many students ask this question when they arrive the first day of school. I chose young turtle since the turtle in many folk traditions is seen as a symbol of wisdom. For young children, the image of Franklin the Turtle is often associated with adventure and life lessons.
From the story Turtle’s Quest, students can learn that a quest can provide many answers in unpredictable places. This story also teaches students that the answers and the lessons can be found anywhere but ultimately are discovered within our own minds. For life long learners, the lessons and answers can be found within the interaction of outside (in the world) and inside (constructed in the mind).
◦ What’s your pedagogical rationale for doing this?
I am about to begin work as a sessional instructor in a faculty of education. I have shifted from front line work in a school setting and wanted to capture the essence of the life long quest for knowledge. Young turtle’s story is one that has been told in many cultures, in many ways, with many different endings. Students embarking on a journey to become teachers need to discover the teacher within so they can present their lessons to others in effective and meaningful ways. It is this lesson, “We teach who we are”, that this story will present.
◦ Why was this the right tool for you to use to tell your story? Explain how you purposefully selected your tool based on its functionality and your requirements.
My selection was influenced by my image of teaching as a fluid, every changing, ever moving expression. I initially investigated Prezi to provide the fluid movement of image and text, but it didn’t quite fit for my vision of having music embedded throughout the story. The affordances offered by Photopeach just naturally fit with my need to evoke the movement, fluidity, and changing nature of the topic as well as the message in the story. I needed to embed images, sound and motion in a linear yet non-linear fashion to reflect the nature of teaching, learning and educational endeavours. The limitation of using the pre-selected musical choices was a disappointment since I had scoured some free music sites and found just the right music to go with the story. The selections in Photopeach were good choices but not the awesome choice I had found but could not use.
◦ What are the strengths of a storytelling approach? What are the limitations?
◦ The strengths of the storytelling approach become vividly real in the statement “Storytelling, no matter in what form and created in whatever media is a powerful tool to transmit knowledge, culture, perspectives and points of view.” (Tolisano) We are all natural storytellers. Being able to organize experiences into a meaningful whole that can be shared with others is a learning-fulfilling task. Maybe that’s why so many people are doing it.
◦ One limitation of this approach is the time it takes to storyboard, find the media to match the story, create the flow of the story and publish the work. Another limitation of this format is the overwhelming wealth of resources available. It is difficult to find just the right one to fit your vision and need. Being able to search the web for items isn’t always the best way to get the task done.
Reflection
This experience forced me to stop and reflect on my own inner teacher. I found that I returned to older stories, particularly one that I read to my children. This became the basis for the quest. The character for the story came initially from Aesop’s Fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, but quickly changed when I investigated the imagery and stories found with turtle as a main character. (http://www.occc.edu/bwise/Turtles/Turtle_Stories.htm) I am particularly drawn to stories from native traditions and tried to tie some elements into my quest story, hence the raven’s presence in the journey.
I endeavoured to capture the message that our inner and outer journeys and quests will take a life time to learn, can be found in many places and in many ways, and will ultimately be discovered when we are ready for the lessons.
The importance of storytelling is reflected in Daniel Pink’s statement, (from his book A Whole New Mind) “We are our stories. We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves. That has always been true. But personal narrative has become more prevalent, and perhaps more urgent, in a time of abundance, when many of us are freer to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves and our purpose.”
References:
4FreePhotos retrieved July 17, 2011 from http://4freephotos.com/index.php – Photos #e268f5cbcb6d53bc1ab80336e0d35ecb; family of turtles395d351f7fa59d8b64d24d4311fc4d21; seagull and 2 turtles# 67fe0b51c4eae43c8052b6899dd30ba9; old turtle# e55cfc3bc5a435a352cf971e34eb26de; trees with sunset# 48ab3533d7947e627e7e7e2c9c074395; trees in row861270daa24c3da5ede31fac38d496bd; bird at sunset: raven# 2db0bec047501151adfd7d44f456cab8; trees: edge of forest# 8a205ddcdd3898daa57352c0cc78490d; flowers: snowdrops# d0f1b68adf2c34f7b650f1caa61c1450; flowers: snowdrops in forest# f84b398fab019e2e23b45744cdad2c40; bee in flower# 13226c8e119198f6401bb7de21c05300; butterfly on mint# 9dbb3f338eb85c307fd779db125ad861
Big Turtle, A native american Huron story. told by Oban, http://members.ozemail.com.au/~oban/bigturtl.htm
Eastman, P.D. (1960) Are you my mother? Random House Publishing
Educause Learning Institute. 7 Things you should know about digital storytelling. Retrieved on May 17, 2011 from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7021.pdf
Franklin the Turtle Series of books, Kids Can Press retrieved July 18, 2011 from http://www.kidscanpress.com/US/Franklin-the-Turtle-Stories-C2516.aspx?section=5&series=2
Microsoft, Digital storytelling project. (2010). Tell a story, become a lifelong learner. E-book retrieved on July 10, 2011 from http://www.google.ca/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=microsoft+digital+storytelling+project&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&redir_esc=&ei=kLoZTv2nEsiGsgLSyqHCBw
Pink, Daniel H. (2006) A whole new mind New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, Penguin Books. Retrieved on July 10, 2011 from http://www.danpink.com/wnm.html
Rosenthal Tolisano, Silvia. Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators Licensed under Creative Commons Retrieved July 10, 2011 from http://langwitches.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Digital-Storytelling-Guide-by-Silvia-Rosenthal-Tolisano.pdf
Turtle head photo licensed under CC, retrieved July 18, 2011 from http://www.flickr.com/photos/yum9me/679085875/sizes/s/in/photostream/
Turtle Stories found at http://www.talkstorytogether.org/storytime/turtle-stories