Digital Storytelling has become a powerful instructional tool for both students and educators ( Robin, 2006). There are many different definitions of “Digital Storytelling,” but in general, they all revolve around the idea of combining the art of telling stories with a variety of digital multimedia, such as images, audio, and video (Robin, 2006).
Why was this the right tool for you to use to tell your story, particularly from a pedagogical perspective?
The challenge is to select the media type that most effectively presents the learning material in order to achieve intended learning outcomes. Not all media is created equal, and certain formats are more effective for certain tasks ( Siemens, 2003). Animoto was an ideal tool for me as it allowed me to use my own pictures to tell the story of “my love of language”. Animoto was simple to use and it provided a professional looking video. It can be created with little or no knowledge of editing or design principles. Animoto also has a variety of themes, a library of media which could be used without worry of copyright infringement. The free version of Animoto allows for production of a 30 second clip, which is great for summarization skills. However, I wanted my digital story to be a little longer, so I applied for a membership account which has a reasonable price. In addition, Animoto’s videos are stored online, so they can easily be viewed, edited, remixed or shared from anywhere.
How did you purposefully select this for your storytelling tool?
I have conducted training courses for English teachers in Thailand during the summer months and I am planning to use this story as a “hook” at the beginning of the training. If it is to be a successful “hook” I have to present something lively and cheerful. I wanted to produce a digital story with less text, colorful visual presentation, and lively Latin music, Animoto serves my purpose very well.
How does this story work within a course that you teach (or would like to teach) using sound pedagogical arguments?
One of the most popular reasons for producing digital stories, is to create a personal narrative ( Robin, 2006). In this digital story, I reflected on my own thoughts and my engagement with the subject of learning additional languages, hoping that English teachers who view my story would be encouraged to see the benefits of learning another language, show respect for other cultures, and encourage their students to see that the ability to speak an additional language is valuable.
My other intention is to prepare English teachers to teach in a connected classroom where they recognize technology, pedagogy, content, and context as interdependent aspects of effective teaching (Harris, Mishra, & Koehler, 2009 as cited in Dreon, Kerper & Landis, 2011). The incorporation of digital storytelling in my teacher training course should help teachers understand the educational importance and cultural value of the digital storytelling medium ( Dreon, Kerper & Landis, 2011). Moreover, digital storytelling can be used to encourage teachers themselves to prepare their own stories (Sadik, 2008 ). Although many teachers believe that technology integration is more trouble and a time consuming endeavor, however, there are many tools that are easy to use and Animto is one of them.
References:
Dreon,O., Kerper,R.M., & Landis,J. (2011). Digital Storytelling: A Tool for Teaching and Learning in the YouTube Generation 42( 5), 4-9. Retrieved on March 17, 2012 from http://www.amle.org/Publications/MiddleSchoolJournal/Articles/May2011/Article3/tabid/2409/Default.aspx
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 students learning. Educational Tech Research Dev, 56, 487-506.
Siemens, G. (2003). Evaluating Media Characteristics: Using multimedia to achieve learning outcomes. Elearnspace. Retrieved on March 17, 2012 from http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/mediacharacteristics.htm