Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling uses pictures, technology, and your own voice to make a living book. You can make a story about anything in the world! It can be a historical narrative, a fictional story, or a personal tale. With the use of a computer, microphone, Photostory, and pictures, the possibilities are almost endless!
Within the classroom setting, we could use digital storytelling for getting to know yous, reports, book reviews, almost anything. Students in the class can have a lot of fun working on something serious or entertaining. Digital Storytelling can be a lot of fun.
For my lesson, I would have my students study culture by researching and creating a digital story about how people around the world celebrate Christmas and the history behind it. I chose this topic because most students have personal interest in Christmas and some sort of history with it. This topic would be engaging and interesting. To help them learn how to get started, I would first have them visit these websites.
http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_storytelling

http://http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/

I would use an example to show the students what goes into the story: voice, images, music, a hook, script, work. After that, we would make a story together so students can become familar with the technology. I would walk them through finding pictures, music, recording voice, everything they need to do to make a great story. I would assign certain areas of research and let my students work in partners.
I would also be sure to go over copyrights and make sure everyone made a works cited page. I would also have them decide how much of their story they would feel comfortable making available to the public.

My digital story was fun to make. Something that was hard was getting the voice to match the time of the pictures. I would recommend to my students that they figure out exactly what they want to say on their movie before they do anything. After that, they can find pictures and music that go with the script.
I would make another digital story again if I had to. My first story wasn't very personal to me, so I didn't like it very much. I would like to do my next story on something I really enjoy. That way, my audience will also enjoy it.

Halloween History

How much do you know about Halloween? Why do we carve pumpkins? Why are black cats and bats so scary around this time of year? Take a look at this Happy Halloween History Page and find out some of the reasons as to why we do and believe the things we do. Have fun!!

Welcome!

Summer is coming to an end and fall is in the air. We are coming to the beginning of an exciting year. Some of the things we get to explore this year include learning about our country, keeping ourselves healthy,speaking and listening, and even some math. Don't worry, we will have a blast while we learn and will be doing some fun activities! Be excited to come every day. We will all become friends very quickly. I can't wait!