Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is a tool that you can use in the classroom for a variety of things. You can compile class photos from the school year in a story board and show it off to everyone at the end of the year. You can also use it as a teaching tool for a lesson, such as history. After playing with a story board application for a bit it seems that you can really do quite a bit with it and it is almost like an electronic book, how neat!

There are some great website online that you can find that are great resources for how to compile a digital storyboard if you are confused on how to do it. Some of these sites are:

http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/storyboarding.html

http://www.umass.edu/wmwp/DigitalStorytelling/How%20to%20Create%20a%20digital%20story.htm

http://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/starttofinish/storyboarding/

Blog Following 101 -

I think what I am learning most about following blogs based on education issues is that I have to take everything that I read with a grain of salt. With that said, I am completely frustrated reading the majority of the blogs that I have been following. The frustration does not stem from the bloggers themselves but rather the information that they are sharing.

The NCLB has and always will be a hot topic for educators until it has been addressed in a manner that is beneficial for everyone. When I say everyone I mean children, parents, educators, administrators, and political heads. I find it incredibly unfortunate that the future of children (and teachers!) has been left to the scores of standardized tests. One of the more recent blog postings that I read from the blogger that I follow posted an article about how the "Fed's" are now thinking about testing children in preschool. PRESCHOOL! Without getting too political on this topic, it has to do with Obama's, "Race to the Top" program. You can go to this link and read more specifics about it. http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2011/07/_to_compete_states_must.html

What does this mean for me as a teacher in the future? I feel that it means as a teacher I will be teaching even LESS to the children and more AT the children. At what point is someone going to step in and say that enough is enough? The United States is a leader in many ways in this world, but I hate to say that I am not sure we are doing much good for our children by teaching to a test rather than truly educating our children and setting them up for the best possible future. After all, we always hear that teachers are "educating our future", but what does that mean for us as a society if all we are doing is racing to the top? Not to mention what that means for teachers who are more interested in claiming "prize" money rather than truly educating students.

While searching for global education communities I remembered the days in elementary school when we used to write to pen pals. I absolutely loved writing and receiving letters from someone in another state that I had never met and I can still remember where my pen pal was from. Lincoln, Nebraska! While I was reminiscing about old, old, old times I got to thinking how neat it would be to have an electronic version of penpals and that someone out there has had to have started something along these lines. I don't mean facebook, myspace, or twitter but something more involved and interactive. Sure enough, I came across a really great program.

Flat Classroom Project!

http://www.flatclassroomproject.net/index.html

This is a project that was created by two teachers, one in Georgia and one in Bangladesh! How neat is that?! These two teachers came together to create a innovative approach to learning by connection their two classrooms together using unique multimedia. The name of it alone reminded me of a book we once read as kids called Flat Stanley. It is a book about the adventures of a little boy who is completely flat and travels all over the world in an envelope. If you haven't read it, I suggest you do as it is a great literacy activity to do with your students and could be knitted into a blogging activity as well!

Here is a video that I made using my family photographs for each of my family members. This is a great tech tool to use in your classroom for children of all ages but may be better used in 3rd grade or higher as the kids will be more capable of playing around with all of the programs features.