Sunday, November 30, 2008
Ebooks and Digital Storytelling
Once again I find myself learning about more new technology. I find both ebooks and digital storytelling to be useful and exciting tools for both personal and professional use. I am really excited about Ebooks. I am an avid reader and I love the idea of being able to download books to my phone, computer, etc... and have them available to me anytime, anywhere. It is amazing what we are able to do now. I also really like the idea of digital storytelling. I think that students would really love to create digital stories. It would be a great way to bring their writing to life, and to make writing more exciting for them if they know that they are going to be making their story or project into a digital story. However, if I am trying to keep it real, it always comes back to how do I find the time to add this into an already over packed curriculum. I feel I barely have time to teach what I am required to do, that I don't know how I would find the time to keep adding more and more to it. It seems that it would be quite time consuming to teach the process and have 24 fourth graders complete a digital story. I just don't know that the benefits would justify all of that time. I feel frustrated when there are so many things that I would like to do, but not enough time to fit it all in.
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5 comments:
I agree with you that creating digital stories or the resource kits used by kids to create their own digital stories is very time consuming. Maybe with older students in middle or high school this project could be completed with a little less struggle. Thank goodness there are already websites like tumblebooks that have these digital stories avaliable. Perhaps after exposing students to a wide variety of digital books, they would understand the concept enough to easily create their own. As with lots of other skills, I think creating a digital storybook is something that requires practice. Unfortunately, during the school day, there is very little "extra" time to spend on great learning activities such as this!
I totally agree with you about how exciting eBooks seem. I guess I'm a little bit of a traditionalist when it comes to reading, I love to have a good book in my hands (just finished reading the entire Twilight series this week). I also definitely agree that students would likely be really enthused about digital storytelling, but like you I have trouble figuring out where the time to prepare the lessons and students would come from. Nice work.
Like you, I am excited about these new technologies for both personal and professional use. I think you hit on the biggest pushback to digital storytelling - time. I share your frustration with time constraints on an overpacked curriculum. Your post has me thinking about applying digital storytelling to the middle school classroom, where I will be when I return to teaching. Anytime I have encorporated new technology successfully, I have had to take my students from the shallow end of the pool, so to speak, to the deep end. Whenever I tried just diving in to the deep I found myself extremely frustrated doing most of the work.
I found that to help yourself out you must take little steps with your students. Perhaps you could start by giving them many different examples, and discuss with them what they see. This can be on a different topic prior to the topic they will use to create a story. Then start with some of the computer skills needed to build up to digital storytelling. I would also collaborate with another teacher or the media specialist to see if you could help each other out so that they are not having to do all the learning on your time. Other than that, you have to be creative in trying to tie the curriculum to use of technology.
I think ebooks are the next step after books on tape. I have always heard people say that they listen to books on tape while they drive to work on a long commute. I guess ebooks are the new books on tape! And like others have mentioned they have a much longer lifespan. I am concerned about the costs, however. Our media centers are so strapped for cash anyway, but overall it sounds like a wonderful technology.
Hollie,
I can feel your frustration. As I enter each class with enthusiasm I am quickly overwhelmed at the material and new technology trends that we must be able to incorporate at any given time. Sometimes I feel more like a "techy" than anything. I agree that this project would be something that we would probably pencil in on our lengthy "to do" list for the year. I contemplated the idea of offering the training at the beginning of the year for teachers only, but as with most new technology hands-on it the best option. I think high school students would probably exhibit a better learning curve for the digital storytelling. Only time will tell.
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