Storytelling


Last week a fourth grade teacher approached me about the museum her class is creating on the Native Americans in Wisconsin.  Students researched and wrote stories about different tribes, but she did not know the best way for students to share the information with visitors to the museum.  I suggested that they try "Storyrobe," a free digital storytelling application.

Since neither the classroom teacher or I had ever used the application with a class, we started with two students.  Using the itouch camera, students took pictures that went with their stories.  We learned that it was easiest to take photos using the camera, and then add them to Storyrobe as the story is created.  Students placed dots in their script to mark the location where the image should change.  The "author" recorded the story as another student selected the next image.  All students in this class of 22 successfully created their "Storyrobe" stories in just a few days.

Once the stories were done we uploaded them to a private youtube account for the tour of their museum.

Detailed information about digital storytelling using Storyrobe can be found on the Storyrobe web site.

I'm at Level 81! (iTouch implementation)

Students need to understand the goal of an application.  I learned this quickly with second grade students.  They wanted to get to the "next level," on several applications, but in many cases got there by guessing.  This is probably "video game mentality" where that is the aim.  After the classroom teacher and I explained the true objective and showed the students how they could see the number of responses that were correct or incorrect, the focus was much more intentional on using the applications to learn and reinforce skills and knowledge.

It is important for teachers to be familiar with the applications and to clearly explain the objectives to the students.  It is also important for teachers to continually monitor student progress, helping them make adjustments to settings to meet individual learning needs.