Including Digital Storytelling Into Curriculum RR-5

When I begin teaching, I am hoping to work in the fourth grade. I have done most of my teaching experiences and internships in the third and fourth grade, and found that I absolutely love this age group. As part of my curriculum in fourth grade social studies, I would like to include a digital storytelling project addressing the exploration and settlement of Florida unit. I would use this project to address the 10 Sunshine State Standards for this unit of study, as well as standards in writing and technology.

For this project, I would assign students into small groups of about 4-5 per group. Students would pick an explorer (Hernando De Soto, Ponce De Leon, etc.) and create a digital story about their life and their exploration (including motivation, interactions with Native Americans and impact on Florida). Students could also choose to do their project on one of the major Native American tribes during this time and create a digital story about their tribes, migration, ways of life and effect the explorers had upon them.

To prepare my students for this activity, I would first show them a few examples of digital stories on similar content and discuss them as a whole class. We would discuss the different components of a digital story, including video, graphics, audio and text. Hooking my laptop computer up to the projector, I would go through the process of partially completeing a sample digital story with my students to give them an idea of what they will be doing. I would also provide a rubric and step by step directions on how to compose the digital story on my homepage or wiki page for students to access at any time. On my page I would include a few examples of digital stories for students to view at home with their parents.


During this activity, students will be using different type of web resources to gather information for their story. Students would use the Internet and different search engines to do research on their chosen topic, and then use programs such as Microsoft Word to jot down information they want to include in their story. Students should be using this information to create timelines based on their explorer or Native American tribe's life and events.


In order to empower my students to produce a good digital story, I would allow them to use other tools such as a microphone and / or digital video camera, where they would record themselves reading information from their research, and digital cameras or scanning software where they can include images they have produced, or images of their timeline and research. I would try to get the media specialist to work with me on this project and guide students in using this type of equipment.

Digital Storytelling AR#4

This past week, I have learned a lot of new information about using digital storytelling software in the classroom.  As a student in UCF's college of Education, I have spent a lot of time working with teachers in local classrooms.  One class I worked in was a third grade class at Longleaf Elementary.  During my time spent working with this teacher, one of the projects I spent a lot of time on with the students was helping them to create a digital storybook of their class.  Each student had one 30 second slide in which they uploaded an image of themselves (taken with a digital camera during media activity time), and then read into the microphone information about themselves (which they had worked on and revised during writing time in the classroom).  The students then selected a piece of background music to accompany their slide.  At the end of the year, the class got to watch the story, and each student received a copy of the disk to keep.  From what I experienced, this activity had a very positive impact on the students, and each of them looked forward to the time where they got to work on their digital storytelling.  Through this activity, the students worked on their writing skills, verbal and reading skills, as well as gaining experience in the use of digital video cameras and digital cameras, microphones and putting everything together on the software program.  Most of all, the students had FUN and got to explore their creativity.

After watching the YouTube video Digital Storytelling in Plain English, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP6CeGLPuOY,  I found myself learning even more about this great piece of technology.  For an assignment in one of my courses, I found myself using PowerPoint software to create my own digital storytelling.  I have had a lot of experience with powerpoint and other desktop office software, so I found myself pretty comfortable in creating this presentation.  The version I used has a very easy to use wizard, which guides you through most of the set up process.  I had fun choosing a relevant background layout (a keyboard) which was in the database of the software, and deciding how I was going to present my information.  As I was creating this presentation, I found myself thinking of ways this program could be used by students, for example as a way to organize content for students in their lessons.  Powerpoint provides easy to read headings, subheadings and bullet points which could be a great way for students to create graphic organizers, timelines, stories and other presentations. 

Digital storytelling reflection

View more presentations from Megan Smith.

Online Identity AR#3

As a future educator, I think that it is very important to be accessable and maintain a good relationship with your students and their parents.  These days, it seems that many people prefer to communicate using the Internet (especially through email) rather than face to face or on the phone.  I personally find that I prefer to use email communication rather than talking on the phone.  For this reason, I think that creating an online web page is a great way to better connect with parents and students, and to allow them more access to you both during and outside of regular school hours. 

I recently created my first "About Me" page linked to my blog.  Although I have had a Facebook page for quite a while now where I am able to communicate and share information with my friends, family, classmates and coworkers, this has been my first experience in creating a professional online identity. I think that it is important to let parents and students get to know me not only as Ms. Smith the teacher, but also as Megan Smith the person.  I feel that sharing some insight to who I am as a person can help form a closer connection between myself and my students and their parents.  I love getting to know the students I teach, and I know that I have always enjoyed learning about my own teachers' personal lives.  I still remember my fifth grade teacher, Mr. Bartelson, who shared his love of gymnastics with us, and even did a few backflips one day.

Currently, I am a full time grad student working part time at the front desk of a local hotel. However, I hope to begin teaching full time soon, and when I do, I plan on creating a web page for my students and their parents to go where I will provide them with useful links to sites like Ask for kids (http://askkids.com/) as well as upcoming assignments and projects, contact information should they have any questions, as well as some personal information where they can enjoy getting to know their teacher. 

Using Microsoft Excel (AR2)

I have always thought of myself to be pretty comfortable in using desktop technologies such as Microsoft Office.  When I first began my college career back in the fall of 2004, I actually decided to get a 2 year degree in office administration, completing courses focusing on the use of these tools.  After working in a loan office for a few months after graduation, I decided to go back to school and focus on my real passion: education.  I currently work at the front desk of a hotel (and work as a full time grad student at UCF), and am constantly using tools such as microsoft word and excel, both for work and school, creating simple spreadsheets for things such as employee schedules, time sheets, guest information, etc as well as for typing up and formatting assignments for my courses.

Recently for one of my college courses, I had to experiment with completing different tasks on a microsoft excel spreadsheet reflecting a typical teacher gradebook.  I found excel to be a lot harder than I remembered! It has been so long since I have actually had to create formulas and transfer data between worksheets.  I had an especially hard time figuring out how to make a set of data dynamically appear between worksheets.  However frustrating these programs can sometimes be, though, I think that these office tools are wonderful for use in the classroom.  I like to keep myself very organized, and I like the layout that excel offers in keeping student grades and information organized, and how you can set the sheets up to automatically calculuate student grades.  I think that it is important for teachers to keep up to date with these technologies and their use to make student records management as easy as possible.

This assignment was definately a wakeup call for me.  Having completed an office systems program in college four years ago, I suppose I thought that I didn't need to refresh myself in the newer versions of Microsoft Office products or complete any more training.  However, after the hours of frustration spent trying to figure out how to complete simple tasks in the spreadsheet activity, I definately plan on taking some tutorial lessons for this product.