I have to admit. The prospect of incorporating digital storytelling into a second grade class seemed laughable to me when I first thought about it. The grad class I am taking is currently talking about digital storytelling and how it can be used as a tool to help build writing, speaking, listening, and reading skills while incorporating critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication skills. Specifically, we have discussed how this would benefit English language learners by providing a different venue for them to practice these skills in an authentic way while creating a product that they can then share if they desire. I don’t have any ELLs on my roster this right now, but I couldn’t help but think about how this could help my students – some of which are emergent readers and writers that are reluctant to write.
Almost every kid has jumped on YouTube and watch some sort of video there. Many have watched how to videos to create some craft, slime, or pass a video game level. A digital story might just be the thing to help give some of my kids the confidence they need to become writers. However, is it even possible in the primary grade level?
It took a while combing through my Google alerts and then searching around the web, but I stumbled across a blog entry on Creative Educator that talked specifically about this topic. The article reiterates just how powerful digital storytelling can be for teaching reading, writing, and digital literacy. While at times it did seem like a sales pitch for a specific program, it did talk about ways to accomplish creating digital stories that didn’t require their program of choice. Some ideas for classroom use included narrative writing, opinion writing, “how to” writing, and informational writing. It even suggested a combination of a few genres and reasoned that the best educational tools often combine elements across different genres to capture the user’s interest and entertain while educating. It made sense.
While reading, I realized that, in a small way, I have already used digital storytelling in my classroom in previous years. I just wasn’t up on the buzz words. One year I had students write poems and then draw an illustration for those poems. Then I had them use an iPad app called ChatterPix to make their illustrations talk and recite their poems. The kids had a blast. In a different year we used ChatterPix to make a picture of a historical person (like Lincoln or Dr. King) talk. The illustration told the viewer about themselves. Of course it was the child’s voice and they wrote the script after completing research.
This might not be what many people think of when they think about a digital story, but for 7/8 year olds it was amazing. The amount of authentic writing that was produced was phenomenal. I had kids that hated writing and reading research all sorts of facts about people so they could make a better video than their friend. The biggest drawback to the program is the time limit of 30 seconds. Kids had to make several videos and then I had to spend time editing them into a longer presentation. In the future I plan to utilize a little better technology that is still kid friendly and continue the digital storytelling journey in my classroom.