"A collection of stories is the way to rewrite a singular history that has been in textbooks....I think it takes a lot of people telling a lot of stories about what their experience has been, what the experience of their ancestors has been."
The speaker is Tommy Orange, an Oakland-based media consultant, writer, and digital storyteller who is an enrolled member of the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and describes himself as "a father, a son, a brother, an uncle, a partner, a storyteller, and a committed member and servant of his community." For Issue #3 of The Republic of Stories, our quarterly online publication, Arlene Goldbard interviewed Tommy and Tony Platt, author of books inlcuding Grave Matters: Excavating California's Buried Past, who lives in Berkeley and Big Lagoon, California, and serves as secretary of the Coalition to Protect Yurok Cultural Legacies at O-pyuweg (Big Lagoon).
Meograph is a free, easy multimedia storytelling tool. Students can quickly combine videos, audio, pictures, text, maps, timelines, and links to create what the developers call "four-dimensional storytelling." No registration is required and an education version is available. You have to play around with it to get the concept before introducing it to students.
Thank you, Jennifer, for sharing your process on digital storytelling. I teach middle school English and am not as tech-savvy as you, but I know the value of a well-planned multimedia project for students. I am inspired to plan out a similar project, now that I see how to do it. I like that they create a storyboard and script to emphasize the "meat" of their project and not the glitzy stuff. Their narrated videos are quite impressive. Your students are lucky to have you!
Thanks Irene! The students did such an amazing job. You really don't have to be tech-saavy to employ this in your classroom. The software is already so user-friendly. The person who taught me how to do this was an English teacher - she would use it with poetry, so that students would have to emphasize emotion in their reading. Very effective!
Jennifer, this is wonderful! I love how you give your students choices of which app to use and how you place the onus on them to learn it and to troubleshoot on their own. This is something that I teach in my computer classes because students have to acquire and feel comfortable with that skill. Thanks!
Storyboard That is a robust web tool that allows students to create and edit Storyboards. This site is simple to use and allows users to drag and drop stick figures and screen elements, as well as add their own content, to the storyboard time line. Enough tools and features to be really useful and not too many to confuse young users, this is a nice way for students to create storyboards for class projects, videos, or anything else you can think of including comic strips. There is a nice educator portal which has some lesson plans and example student work.
Not free, but free trial and reasonably priced for teachers
"Bring the world's best storyboard creator into your classroom!
From first grade to graduation, Storyboard That engages students with digital storytelling in the classroom."
This is a superb resource for making 3D storyboards and animations. The programme is a little complicated and is designed to be used by older children. It feels similar to Google SketchUp and it will have your class enthralled for hours with creative writing and animating fun. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video,+animation,+film+&+Webcams
A presentation about "Engaging students with literacy to create powerful, rich multimedia stories that bring their writing to life. "
Essentially a movie from a Prezi, it guides teachers through 4 different digital storytelling options and why they are important.
Joyce Valenza and Kristen Swanson, have assembled a good collection of Web 2.0 tools and guides for teachers. The collection is part of STHS Library Guides. Their new tools catalog is organized by function (wikis, podcasting, etc) and topics related to technology use in schools (media literacy, fair use, privacy).
Applications for EducationIf you're the technology integration specialist or just the "techy" person that everyone goes to, the STHS Library New Tools is a good site to refer your colleagues to when they need a quick reference to learn about new tools.
An amazing array of resources for education: digital storytelling, copyright/creative commons, tag clouds, mindmapping, digital citizenship and more. Take 10 minutes to peruse this - impressive collection. Looks current, too.