How will you tell Your story?

     I remember as a child being immediately transported to far away lands by the stories that my kindergarten teacher read to us at carpet time.  I can remember my favorite stories far better than I can remember the formulas and algorithms that my math teacher taught us in high school.  When we tell and hear stories, those stories tend to stick with us and become part of our core base of knowledge.  By incorporating digital storytelling into our classrooms we are not only helping our students retain the knowledge that we are trying to impart upon them, we are also encouraging their comprehension of the topics that they are retelling.

     In Benjamin Porter’s, Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum, he says,  “The digital storytelling process helps us transform isolated facts into illuminated, enduring understandings.”  As teachers we hope that our students will remember the core of what we teach in years to come. I took time to think about Benjamin Porter’s words and what the whole idea of digital storytelling would mean for my classroom.  I imagined the number stories that my students could create that illuminated measurement, money and grouping.  My students could use meaningful pictures and words to connect to these math concepts, peer sharing their work to help other students. I would also be able to use those digital stories to assess their understanding.  I thought about how children developing their digital stories could replace biographical movies and documentaries played after historical units.  How exciting would it be for students to share their own works with their classmates.

Digital Storytelling not only connects what we’re teaching to the things that they find important and meaningful, it also  implements the use of technological skills that they will need in the future.  Our students will be learning how to combine, photograph, animation, text, video and so many other facets to effectively communicate with the world.  As I become more aware of the educational tools that are available to my students,  I get more and more excited about the possibilities for my classroom and the learning that will happen there.