Digital Story

View In My Neighbourhood in a larger map

Why is this story worth telling: what does it contribute to student learning? What’s your pedagogical rationale for doing this?
This story is worth telling because it shows how living in one place can be manipulated by those things we interact with on a daily basis. In this case, it is the landmarks / land developments in my neighbourhood. This story also contributes to student learning because it can used be as an exemplar of how we recognize the landmarks in the community,  how we use these landmarks and understanding why they are important part of our lives. The pedagogical rationale for doing this with my students is to show them that there are many goals to using maps then just finding directions from point A to B. To achieve these goals, I can use this map story as a demonstration tool to show them that imagery, content and location based experiences can all be combined in a functional and deliberate manner for presentation to closed or open audiences.
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.
This was the right tool to tell my story because it took an experience(s) I had and showed in visually by locations, landmarks and literature. I chose this tool based on a number of criteria. While I originally wanted to combine geotagging and storytelling together, I found that Google Maps My Maps provided the right balance of displaying content, pictures and locational based landmarks. Most of my students, I would almost say all of them, have either used or played around with Google Maps or Google Earth. This previous experience would be an asset to using this tool. Bu giving the students a purpose in using this tool, it can introduce creativity, in the choice of graphical POI (Points of Interest) and picture selection. The tool itself was fairly simple to set up and interact with, which is important to me and to my students. There is a learning curve to the more tricky parts of working with HTML, but that is also beneficial to the students who want to develop a better understanding of this tool. Overall, this is a great tool to use. With a Google account, students can access and save work online in a fairly easy resource demanding application. This work can be edited both at school and home due to the online nature of the tool. Lastly, it can be kept in a private space or shared with the public for all to see.
What are the strengths of a storytelling approach? What are the limitations?
The strengths of the storytelling approach are:
1) It’s something every human does or hears/reads.
2) It does not need to be overly complicated.
3) The story can be shared or passed on from that of the original author.
4) The story can be told either orally, visually or audibly.
Storytelling has been around since primitive humans walked the Earth. It is as much as a part of social interaction as it is part of blockbuster movies. As such, it is fairly intrinsic to most people and makes up a large part of society and culture. Based on this, educators who encourage students to use the storytelling approach can expect to see content development more personalized and informative in place of them writing research papers or fictional literature. Furthermore, as the story is genuine, the audience may be able to make connections beyond that of topical coincidences.
There are limitations. As storytelling is very personalized, it may exclude a larger audience then a fictionally developed story. Take my own story. While it has elements that others may have experienced (ex. owning a dog, going running, screaming children, etc.) the location based elements of the story may mean nothing to the broader audience. Another issue with storytelling is that it is usually told in a casual manner rather than a formal manner. It is normally not polished. While the content of the story may be engaging, it does not encourage the writer to be reflective about his/her writing technique.

Overall, I have enjoyed this experience. I really hope to deploy this activity in my classroom this year, either as a geography activity or language activity.

Cheers,
Ryan.