Here is my personal story using an online tool (click on the picture):
* Why is this story worth telling: what does it contribute to student learning? What’s your pedagogical rationale for doing this?
Although I will know almost all of my students next year, I won’t know my homeroom class very well. I wanted to create something that would help to make a connection between them and me; an ice-breaker that would also serve as an example of how they could make their own personal intro to the rest of the class.
* 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.
I had a couple of story ideas floating around in my head. I either wanted to talk about Social Studies (Louis Riel or Canadian Identity through music / musicians), or a short personal history. My Riel story (which I may do) would have been done in VoiceThread. I imagined it as something that I would do the voices of characters for to try and bring it alive for my students. My concern in making it now was getting all of the content right the first time, as well as the voices… and finding good pictures that were free to use. As for the musical one, it was the first idea to get the axe. I figured I would never be able to play the songs or show the pictures that I wanted to. I decided on a personal story, as it was something I had most of the resources for already, and it was still something usable for my class next year. I could use pictures to supplement my points, it has a little motion, some text, and it is a show that I can advance at the board in front of my students (at my own pace) while I present it.
* What are the strengths of a storytelling approach? What are the limitations?
A strength of storytelling is the WIDE array of ways in which it can be done. Depending on what the audience is, and what kind of story you want to tell, there are all kinds of cool ways to tell it. It can also be a method of connection / expression that makes things personal while using different skills. A limitation is that the tool you want to use and the story you want to tell don’t always match up… sometimes one may overtake the other.
Resources
Jenkins, H. “Spoilers, Bloggers, Modders and Thieves: Empowered Consumption in an Age of Media Convergence.” New Media Consortium Conference, 2004. UBC. Accessed online July 25 201o http://archive.nmc.org/events/2004summerconf/jenkins2.html
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 July 25 2010 http://www.educause.edu/ER/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume42/DrMashuporWhyEducatorsShouldLe/161747
Levine, A. (2007). “50 Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story.” Accessed online July 25 2010 http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools