Classroom Tips or Keeping Exciting Digital Storytelling Projects on Track. Available online at: http://www.adobe.com/education/digkids/storytelling/classtips.html
As I have been dabbling into learning more about Digital Storytelling as a form of visual literacy, I have began to wonder about how effective it can be in a classroom of 21 students. A great resource I have used in the past for other things, Adobe Digital Kids Club, had a section to offer up some good management ideas to be able to incorporate digital storytelling effectively by planning out the management first. The article I read offered up some key ideas:
• Give students roles such as the storyboard manager, recording voiceover manager, graphics coordinator, etc. Giving a student a role simply means they are the ‘lead’ person for that area to ensure it gets done and everyone is on board.
• Create a type of process or checklist that students would follow through their project. Have students review their process ahead of time to ensure they know what to do next.
• For those students that need a question answered, set up a management process called ‘Three Before Me’ where the student should ask 3 of their peers the question to find the answer before they go to the teacher (whom might be working with another group). The article notes that this management helps to create independence and peer support on each other.
• To keep on a time schedule, have students create their entire project on paper (storyboard) before they head to the computer. The computer can sometimes lead the students to sit and play without getting busy.
• Create deadlines and expect things to be done in a somewhat timely manner. For students who are not focused and contributing, give them an alternative assignment that is non-technology related. This will hopefully encourage their next technology opportunity to be more driven.
Going through these tips gave me some good things to think about in response to wanting to help my students tackle writing in a more involved way. It has led me to focus more on getting their motivation going about this type of activity and how to introduce the idea of using digital storytelling in their writing. My thoughts after synthesizing this article are: 1) behavior management isn’t as much a problem for me, my concerns are the time and focus of my students, and 2) what exemplifies a good, quality project…what do I want them to give me?
Annette
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2 comments:
Those are great tips Annette! I often struggle with putting my students in small groups, because I am worried that the students who are not working in my own group will not being doing what they should be doing. :o) It would be awesome if you could synthesize those tips into some form of a rubric, perhaps one for the students and one for the teacher. You could put little reminders to the side like the "three before me" rule and may even want to write a brief "job" description for each of the leaders. I would look online to find some sample storybooks on your grade level and show them to the students before you begin the process, so that you both know what to expect. You might even be able to find a ready made rubric, if not you could always create your own using Rubistar...I just checked and they have a template for digital storytelling. It's available at: http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php?screen=CustomizeTemplate&bank_rubric_id=38§ion_id=3&
Hope that helps!
Sabrina
Annette,
I think all of your ideas are great ideas! I actually use all of them every single time I do a partner or group project with my students. The last project I did, my students were researching a topic and creating a power point as a group, and I gave them a list of group roles, with descriptions attached to each one. Each group member had be in charge of one of the roles. Also, as far as quality projects go, I always give my students a list of the bare minimum that needs to be included. I also give them a rubric that shows exactly what they need to do to get an A, B, etc. This is very benificial! At first, since my kids weren't used to using rubrics in previous years, I had to explain to them what it was and how it could be a tool for them. I would also read over the "A" requirements with them, for the more auditory learners. This seems to work very well. Then, when I grade, I use that exact rubric. It makes it easy for the students to see exactly what they did right or wrong. Great points!
Jenn
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