Our class’ text book is Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity by Jason Ohler. I have been reading through the first several chapters and have found many jewels of information, connections to my teaching, and new concepts of which I need to increase my knowledge. I also found that several concepts were simply common sense, such as digital storytelling should be storytelling first and digital content second; no amount of digital content can cover up a weak story.
I really enjoyed the first chapter of the book, entitled Confessions of a Digital Storytelling Teacher. This chapter reminds us that storytelling is an essential element in human nature; our lives are made up of stories and we all have the need to share these stories. Although storytelling has been an integral part of education, students usually create stories on paper. Digital storytelling allows students to use various technologies to enhance their stories. In my experience as an educator, I find that many teachers shy away from utilizing technology because they haven’t mastered the technology that they want their students to use. They are worried that because their students are more comfortable with technology than they are, the students will view the assignments as worthless and the teacher as a fraud. Ohler reminds us that it is less important for the teacher to demonstrate mastery of the technology as the students will often be more advanced in the technological world. It is more important for teachers to be “advanced managers of their students’ talents, time, and productivity.” That is, the teacher should act as a guide, not as a technology guru.
As I continued reading through the next several chapters in Ohler’s book, I found several topics to be very helpful. I appreciated the information on how digital storytelling relates to educational standards and all of the tips on how to plan for and implement digital storytelling assignments. I also really liked the examples of digital stories as there were many different types of digital stories presented. It gave me some great ideas on how digital storytelling in my own classroom.
I had a past conversation about the abilities of our students' technology skills. They seems to be more technically enhanced in technology than teachers. At first, I felt that I could not implement technology in my subject matter due to the lack of technology background and it would be rather uncomfortable to incorporate. But, I now know that students want to share this technology information. They have more time to experiment with technology and its many gadgets. I no longer feel that I have to be an expert in technology to engage my students. So, I no longer worry that my students are more comfortable with technology than I am, because they are willing to share their knowledge.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a good point about teachers being shy with technology. So many times, teachers wait until they're "experts" with a form of technology before they introduce it to their students but by then, it's already too late. Often times introducing new technology to students can be a great opportunity for students to show what they know. Sometimes teachers feel nervous about technology in the classroom because they don't know what students are doing with it. The remedy to that? Get up and walk around! I think with the right technology, storytelling can evolve and become more powerful than it was before.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the point you brought up in that teachers need to be "advanced managers of their students' talents..." Many of us know how creative kids/students can be and often they have much better ideas than us!! We can't create a barrier between our students and ourselves because we are afraid they will look "smarter." We should make an environment where new ideas are encouraged. We should put ourselves at a level where we are all learning from each other, which will help to promote our students to be creative. Being a FACILITOR is a great role that teachers need to take on.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with your point about teacher and technology. I think that in this technology era, we need to see ourselves even more than usual as facilitators, especially when it comes to technology. We can not possibly keep up with everything, nor do I think we need to. It should be enough to have some mastery of our subject matter and enhance out teaching with technology. My recent experience with students has been that are thrilled that I allow them to even scratch the surface with things like Google Docs and scavenger hunts etc. They have conveyed that they rarely get to see these things at all and even less so in an educational setting.
ReplyDeleteBy giving them guidelines and allowing them to explore on their own, we don't need to be experts, but perhaps better, to acknowledge that we are not and realize that even so, we very often are still more knowledgable than most students, who often seem to only know what they have used which tends to be far less than what they could do. We need to open technology to students and also be open to what they can show us.
I think it is interesting that we as teachers mostly grew up in the tech age and yet we all feel so lacking? What is it that makes mot of us so scared of this technology? Is it fear of the unknown or fear of looking like a fool in front of our students? Will the new round of teachers feel the same way? I guess just getting out there is the only way for me to overcome this fear.
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