CEDU 531 - Week 5

Higher Level Thinking While Creating a Digital Story

A project that I would like to do with my students is to have them each create a digital story that portrays their own strengths and ambitions. To then share these projects with mainstream teachers at the beginning of a new semester, would not only help the regular education teachers identify who my students are but the teachers would also understand the abilitites of my students more clearly. Rather than simply recalling information, to create a digital story about themselves would require my students to use many higher level thinking skills found on Bloom's Taxonomy. For example, synthesis is the fifth level on the scale and includes arranging, assembling, collecting, composing, creating, designing, organizing, and writing. These are all activities that would be required to complete a digital story. Though requiring more preparation and patience to implement, to have my students complete a project of this nature would be much more satisfying to me than positive results on a spelling test or reading comprehension quiz. Not only would they be learning new skills, but they would be creating an end product they could be proud of while also helping their other teachers to understand how special they are like I do.

CEDU 531 - Week 4

I was totally oblivious to the world of podcasting prior to this class. I work one mile from my home, sleep on vacation drives to avoid carsickness, work out with friends who like to talk a lot, and each night spend my free time listening to my 6 year old read Scooby Doo Mysteries. As a result, I don't plan to download any podcasts for personal use any time soon.

Regardless, I was quite entertained by creating my own podcast during class - check it out on the sidebar! I really enjoy learning new ways to use technology, especially when they are so easy to implement. Because I work at a high school, a large percent of my students have cell phones which will make utilizing gCast, as we did in class, a relatively simple task. My plan is to try it out with my Basic Communications class this week and have them each read their favorite creation from our most recent unit on poetry. As typical with SLD students, my class has weak written communication skills and I am anticipating that they are going to enjoy making their work available to the world without having to write it again!

CEDU-531, Week 3

Elements of Digital Storytelling

The element of digital storytelling that I can best apply in my classroom is that of emotional content. This is an element that, though others can intuitively figure out, is sometimes difficult for students with special needs to pick up on. Digital stories are an excellent tool to help students identify feelings and emotions and then also to dig deeper and identify what factors help contribute to those feelings. For example, we can discuss how the use of color, tone of voice, music, images, and pacing all contribute to how we feel about the subject. Excellent~

CEDU531 - Week 2

We had the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time during class exploring Voicethread and creating a simple digital story with the photos we uploaded this week. Joe and I put together a pleasant, five slide presentation on Central Park. After some more experimentation with this program, I can foresee using it with my communications class to do a similar exercise. I would let them choose a topic of their choice (which from recent experiences would be Ford trucks, Honda cars, Yamaha snowmobiles, LiL Wayne, or Modest Mouse) and have them upload pictures and write a script explaining them. An additional requirement may be to have each student create a comment on the other's digital story.

CEDU531 - Week 1

Cheryl Ross (9-12 Special Education)
There are a number of ways that I believe that I can use digital storytelling in my classroom. My first thought was to use it with my Basic Communications 3&4 class. As part of a semester long project, the students could begin by researching a career of interest to them. Then I would set them up with a job shadow experience and encourage them to document their visit by taking photos and collecting company literature. To complete the project, students would create a digital story of the career they researched and company they visited to inform the other students of a possible job option after high school. Another option for digital storytelling that I am excited to pursue, is to have my students document their disability in this format. Rather than provide a copy of the student's IEP or send an email simply listing accommodations, mainstream teachers could view a digital story of the student's stengths, weaknesses, abilities, interests, and allowed accommodations. To include photos of the student would create an additional impact and make the story both personable and memorable. How exciting!