Digital Story

The use of Storytelling in education is a great way of making a story lively hence engaging students with content.  For my story, I wanted to utilize it as part of my Learning Management System for the Unit – Approaches to Managing Classrooms and Influencing Student Behaviour.  The story is to be used as a means of introducing students to the Unit and have then discuss and share their opinions, suggestions solutions and identify problems.  Also I wanted to get the students actively involved in the Unit so that it would be more meaningful for them and that they would have a better understanding.

As I started the process of trying to decide on the Web 2.0 tool to use for my story, I was cognizant of the content of the story and also the age group of my students (teachers in training).  This resulted in my having a shortlist, Animoto, ZooBurst and Prezi.  I however decided that I wanted to utilize a tool that I have never interacted with before.  Animoto and Prezi are not new to me, even though I selected them.  Prezi was more of a presentation tool and Animoto was too much of a video format.  ZooBurst seemed like a different tool that I believed would engage my students.  Seeing that the story provided much graphic information, I thought that ZooBurst would be good at capturing the information.  I was however unsure if it would be appropriate based on the age group of my students.  As I thought about it, I decided that it would be the best selection as I would not only be using it to engage students in the Unit, but I would also be modeling for them a tool that they could also utilize with their students.  Also, many of my students are not familiar with Web 2.0 tools, so introducing another one would be a great experience for them.

The story I believe is very useful to help students to have an understanding of some of the challenges faced in schools, and to get them to be critical thinkers and discuss with aim to determine solutions.  Also, based on my observations and comments made by students, facilitators need to look at new ways of teaching the course.  I therefore believe that this is one way of achieving that concern.

In using the tool however, I wanted to include appropriate audio, but realized that I would have to pay for that option.  There were challenges in finding appropriate pictures for each page.  I however had to improvise, but believe that if I was able to find appropriate pictures it would certainly enhance the story.  The free option of ZooBurst limits you to ten (10) pages, as a result when too much information is placed on a page, to view it you would need to click on an arrow.  My electronic story can be found at Classroom Management.