I find it rather ironic that my literature classroom is devoid of any digital stories. Perhaps I would go further and say that this fact is also pathetic, but my psychologist has told me to think only happy thoughts. I think that literature is rich with stories that need to be told, and that by experiencing them, readers will learn more about themselves. The problem with literature is twofold. The first issue involves the why does it matter factor. If a student is planning on attending a technical college, and probably never take another literature class after mine, then why does what Twain wrote have any significance to them? And the second issue involves Hamlet's response to Polonius when asked what Hamlet was reading; "words, words, words." Literature requires the reader to read words, then have those words become meaningful on the movie screens of our minds. With the advances in technology, information is received and digested in the visual form, and makes reading a difficult sell. So I have two choices on how to proceed with my dilemma. I could quit my job and go back to running a restaurant, or I can figure out a better way of selling literature to the masses.
The topic of digital storytelling has emerged at the right time in my career. With a classroom filled with visual learners, expecting students to voraciously read books without first selling the story will be as successful as trying to milk a bull. (I will not explain this comparison any further because I think you get the point) So I will do my best this year to make stories come to life through the use of digital storytelling.
The scary issue for me with using digital tools involves the amount of time needed to be successful. I know that Reynolds addresses the ideas of busy vs. busyness. Everyone is busy, but busyness is usually self-imposed. For me to be successful at digital storytelling, I will really have to be efficient at using my time. I can't waste time struggling with whether or not everything I do will be successful. Per the advice from Presentation Zen, I must identify my point and why does it matter. If I can focus on those two questions, I won't spend time being overwhelmed with self-doubt and other insecurities. At that point in our reading, I really felt like that was something that I could accomplish.
Since the stories in class are already written, I need to find ways to make the story come to life. Just because I love what we read doesn't make the class important to my students. The idea of stickiness will also help my plans to use digital storytelling in class. With storytelling being a natural and appealing method to share information, following the six characteristics concerning stickiness should really help my students be open to receiving the information.
I am really looking forward to getting to work on creating some digital stories. I know that not all of my efforts will be rewarded with students rushing to class to learn, but I do know that the tools we have been given so far will greatly improve the chances of my students wanting to read and participate intelligently in class.
I think a good place to use this would be teaching something like Shakespeare. I remember going through Shakespeare in high school and dreaded it because I couldn't understand/relate to it. I think by using a Voicethread, you could create some really cool threads that explained to your students the underlying ideas that are prevalent in all of Shakespeares' novels.
ReplyDeleteWhen you talk about finding the time, I really recommend the analog planning method. I did this for the Civil Rights presentation. It allowed me to plan out a presentation and then go seek out the material for what I wanted. Too often when I work right on the computer I end up seeing and liking way too much material, which makes my presentations dull rather than exciting. When I have too much information the presentation loses its focus, but with the analog planning the focus is much easier to maintain. I also found that in working this way I used a lot less time. My time of the computer was focused on specific tasks rather than rambling about.
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