Digital Story Telling in the Classroom

     Can you imagine a student devoting time, hard work and creativity into a project, and then being able to share their work with friends and relatives from all over the world? I love the idea of implementing digital storytelling in the classroom.

     For me, one of the most appealing features of digital story telling is how many facets of learning it covers for the student. Such a project can develop: creativity, critical thinking, an understanding of principles of design, an understanding of presentation and writing skills, and many more skills. It is furthermore impressive to me that these principles and skills can be taught to the children in a way that will better excite many students to become involved. To me this is a perfect example of implementing technology within the classroom in a meaningful way.

     I believe that when a student puts effort into projects, like a digital story, they develop a greater sense of pride and ownership in their work (especially if they are using newly developed skills). To me that is a marvellous way to inspire students to learn. The ability that we have now in publishing media files on the internet is a way to share students' work within the classroom. The ability to share projects to the web is not only a way to inspire students to work harder, but it is a way to help students develop more pride in their work. It is a way to help students believe that they have something of worth to share with others.  This to me is enough to justify such project in the classroom.

    When I am teaching, I know that I will try to have such projects within my own classroom.

Here is a link of  an example I made using a movie editor to explain a scientific principle (click to see).