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=**Examining Digital Stories **=

** __I. Read and consider the following as we begin to think about why and how technology matters.__ **
**Two excerpts from George Orwell's essay,** [|**"Why I Write"**] **(written two years before he published 1984):** "Putting aside the need to earn a living, I think there are four great motives for writing, at any rate for writing prose. They exist in different degrees in every writer, and in any one writer the proportions will vary from time to time, according to the atmosphere in which he is living. They are:
 * 1) **Sheer egoism.** Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc....
 * 2) **Aesthetic enthusiasm.** Perception of beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right arrangement...
 * 3) **Historical impulse.** Desire to see things as they are, to find out true facts and store them up for the use of posterity.
 * 4) **Political purpose** -- using the word "political" in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples' idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude."

"//Animal Farm// was the first book in which I tried, with full consciousness of what I was doing, to fuse political purpose and artistic purpose into one whole. I have not written a novel for seven years, but I hope to write another fairly soon. It is bound to be a failure, every book is a failure, but I do know with some clarity what kind of book I want to write. Looking back through the last page or two, I see that I have made it appear as though my motives in writing were wholly public-spirited. I don't want to leave that as the final impression. All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally."

**How can these excerpts speak to RCWP in regard to...**

 * **Our mission and purpose?**
 * **Our students and the assignments we give them?**
 * **Our goals around technology and its use in our classes (and at RCWP)? **

** __II. Let's view two digital stories, critique them individually, and then discuss how they compare with each other__ **
 ===A. Use 6 plus 1 traits to view [|David's Delta Airlines digital story] critically (ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions...plus presentation). === 

**» Rate each trait on a scale from 1 (poor) to 5 (best). **
===**B. For the second digital story, [|Daddy Duty], by Jason, respond with Two Stars and a Wish: two things you liked about it and one thing you wish he had done differently.** ===




===A. Students become more critical viewers of the world around them. Students are more able to disect digital .stories, commercials, movies, and other media. They are able to comment more intelligently on what worked well and not so well in terms of message, music, voice, transitions, words on the screen, etcetera. --- in effect, it improves their digital literacy. === ===B. Similarly, students begin to see the "digital" world a little differently: they not only are consumers of the digital world, they are producers/creators of it. Their critical viewing translates into critical creating of their own work. Though the process of making a digital story (writing a script, finding and planning the photos, keeping things organized, making the voiceover, finding appropriate music...) they see what works with what and what doesn't work. ===

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===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">C. Creating digital stories appeals to visual and hands-on learners. Many students crave interactive ways to express their thoughts and feelings. They learn best when they get to see IT and try it themselves, instead of robotically taking notes about it and being tested on it. When something fits with who are as a person, it is just plain more fun. ===

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===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">D. Creating digital stories develops students' problem-solving skills and their ability to transfer learning from one mode of presentation to another. Since the writing process and technology are involved, it is guaranteed that the process of making a digital story will not be an easy, linear one --- and students maneuver much of that process themselves. Given basic skills, they struggle through trial and error, watching tutorials, asking friends, and other strategies toward that final product. And they learn much from that struggle. Furthermore, just when you think you understand a certain technology, a new version comes along. Students learn to take what they struggled to understand from the process of the first technology and apply that understanding to the new version. They borrow, problem-solve, invent...do what it takes (minus plagiarism) to transfer their learning, make those wonderful connections, and grow. ===

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">__IV. How I teach Digital Stories .__
===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">A. I assess prior knowledge by asking if they have made digital stories before and with what programs/software/websites. I make comparisons and contrasts to things they are familiar with like Power Point, commercials, and short movies on You Tube. Seeing who has some experience helps me, and the students who are new to this, know who can help out when I am busy with another student. === ===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">B. I show models of digital stories before I teach them anything about the subject. Both student and teacher models have a purpose: student models give current students confidence that the assignment can be accomplished, as well as general idea of what their final product could look like; and examples of my digital stories show that I have struggled through the process they are about to undertake. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"> === ===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">C. Projecting my computer screen so the class can see it, I open the program (usually Windows Movie Maker) and begin the process of making a digital story. I talk about how sometimes it begins with some photos you have that you want to present in a unique way and sometimes it begins with some written information that you want to put together with photos to create a visual story. In my class, it is usually the later. For example, we had already written Persuasive Essays on one of about 10 topics. Their task was to take the topic of their Persuasive Essay and boil it down to a short, Public Service Announcement of about one minute. They would be looking at the reasons they used in their essay, finding some photos to make the point of the reasons, and creating a visual statement --- a short, digital piece --- in their Public Service Announcement. I let them know about the assignment (there will be handouts later) and then go back to a quick 'this is how you put a digital story together' lesson with Movie Maker. I let them know I'll be going over the basics in more detail later, but when you have photos and a script, you import the photos, include transitions, voice over with your script.... Essentially, I whet their appetite for what's to come. === ===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">D. I had written an essay persuading people that Community Service should be required at the high school level. I show students my process of taking that essay and boiling it down the main reasons (which we would have already done as part of the writing process). I lead them through my thinking process as I wrote my script for a Public Service Announcement (PSA) on the same topic; they pay attention a little better since they know they'll be doing it soon. === ===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">E. Once I have a script and have found photos that fit my topic (using Flickr and Google and discussing the pros & cons of each and how to Save a photo instead of Copy it and how to give credit), we go back to Movie Maker and I use my topic and begin a digital version of the public service announcement. I show them how to incorporate the storyboard form with their script. They get a handout that shows what I expect to see in the final project and how they will be graded (and these are on our class wiki, too). We watch a few of the Movie Maker tutorials on the atomic learning website, partly so they will be able to go back and watch them again if needed. I show them the final product of my Community Service PSA. === ===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">F. The students complete this assignment in their wiki groups of three or four. They show me their script. Then they get time on the computer to write their script into the storyboard and begin looking for photos. These responsibilities are split up within the groups. We stop from time to time and do mini-lessons on storage of photos, tips I forgot to mention, and what to do when you think you're done. They need to show me drafts of their group PSA on certain days and then again at the due date. ===

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===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">I am struggling with the fact that I immerse my students is creating digital stories about factual, or at least non-fiction, topics too much without letting them discover the personal, creative side of digital stories. I feel confined by my curriculum requirements, issues of personal privacy (when students start bringing in photos from home or leaving their last name on final projects on the web), time considerations (am I hogging the computer lab?), and wanting to prepare my students for the "real world" as much as possible. Sometimes writing personal memoirs or "fun" stuff gets lost in the "have-to" of teaching. However, if I don't give them the opportunity to see the full breadth of what a digital story is, they may never get it from another teacher (at least in our district). === ===<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">How do I value fiction and/or personal narrative as it relates to digital stories? How do I make time for digital stories throughout the year when computer time and curriculum dictate me to stay on a certain track? How can I give students a more full appreciation of what a digital story can be? ===

__**<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Resources I use when I teach Digital Stories: **__
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 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Helpful Hints for Movie Maker and the Rubric for the Public Service Announcement (PSA) --- [[file:moviemakertips.doc]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">List of Thesis Statements options for the Persuasive Essay --- [[file:thesisstatement&topicidealist.doc]]
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">Storyboard Worksheet --- [[file:StoryboardWorksheet-Print.doc]]


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">[|Atomic Learning website, which has many free, short tutorial videos for Movie Maker]


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">[|The PSA directions on our Class Wiki (includes examples of PSAs, the rubric, and other helpful information)]

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive"> Other:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">A website I created to teach teachers in my district about Digital Stories
 * Grade Level Content Expectations met with Digital Storytelling
 * Elementary School
 * Middle School
 * High School
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive">http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2529