My experience…
I liked creating the visual story and learning about the many different ways and tools to create MY digital story.  I chose to use RockYou.com which was a fairly pain-free experience.  I selected RockYou because I could upload images directly from my computer (rather than having to upload them to a differnt location on the web before adding them to my account.  I didn’t need to pay for any subscription service as RockYou was an open-source program.

How did RockYou.com impact my story telling ability…
The one thing that I didn’t like about RockYou was I wasn’t able to add voice narration – instead I could only add text to explain my thoughts.  Personally I would have rather used my own voice because a voice (in my opinion) is a much better and personal way to tell my story.  When simply using text it is hard to affect the tone of the story because it is just words.  For instance, if you are trying to imply subtle humour it can be difficult to do with words so the selection process of the pictures becomes more important.  I did look into the tools that would have allowed me to use my voice but unless I didn’t search hard enough, I would have needed software to record my voice (the tools I researched didn’t supply the software) – unfortunately my home computer doesn’t have that feature:(

How might I use this or other tools in my teachings…
I definitely am going to show my class the link we were given to search the 50 different tools.  Like I mentioned in my assignment, I have to do something similar with my grade 12’s so I think this will be a great way for them to share tell their story.  I feel as though it allows for more creativity and to be honest, it is a much better way to read/learn about someone else’s story then the old-fashioned way of using descriptive text.  I think this approach also allows the students to make it more persoanl and meaningful thus hopefully increasing their engagement level?

How would students access these tools…
Simple… give them the same link to the assignment that we were given (http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools).  I liked the way the site presented the 50 tools because it gave an example (using the same story) for each way.  The story didn’t change… how it was told/authored did.

What kind of impact will this have…
I have alraedy mentioned that I think higher levels of engagement will be achieved.  It has been my experience that whenever I can introduce computer based activities my students are much more likely to do a better job.  I am sure there has been research on the matter but for me I don’t need research to back up my thoughts as I have seen the results first hand.  Using web 2.0 tools such as these will allow the students to tell their story in a more meaningful and creative way!

Posted: 04|4|10 at 2:48 pm. Filed under: Uncategorized.
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