Chris Toy was a presenter at our school’s annual BTG conference. He presented on digital storytelling. What’s digital storytelling? View this video and then continue to read my notes on his presentation below.

Title: The First Pedagogy and the 21st Century

• Why tell a story?

Goals for this session:

1. Model sharing of stories
2. Reflect on why digital storytelling is engaging to an audience
3. Transfer activities to classroom practice

• Change and Leadership: How will you prepare yourself and your school for the 21st century? “You must be the change you see want to see in the world.” (Gandhi) – What do you want from a child? What situations will you put your students in? What choices will you offer your students? How will you empower your students? What sustenance will you provide?
• Digital Storytelling is a rich and deep teaching medium
• If you had to use a story in your classroom in the next month, how would you adapt it to your use? This is the most challenging aspect for teachers.
• Teachers need to make it relevant to themselves and their students
• An intro video example on digital storytelling from this Educational Uses of Digital Stories site
• Students become more engaged and learning is more meaningful – ask them to interact within curriculum – Students will become the curriculum
• Another form of storytelling is music (ex. Billy Joel “We Didn’t Start the Fire”- social comment from 1949-1989)
• Business student parody “We Didn’t Start the Crisis”
• Example story of “How Paul Bunyan became a Champion” (photos taken from Creative Commons)
• (C.Toy always stops before the end of the story and asks the audience to predict the ending in pairs – He then asks a reflection question related to the story)
• Point of View story example from elementary students on The 3 Little Pigs (example was a narrated photo slideshow – some stop motion animation applied with photos – some YouTube examples here)
• What are some things or practices that are made of straw, sticks and bricks in our classrooms and schools? (Reflection question related to story)
  
• Musical Stories are another possibility: Social studies example
• How might you use music to reach and teach more students?
• Chris Toy then concluded with some stories about student work regarding problem/project/challenged based learning
• He used these videos: Elem example, HS example
• What can you share about your school’s initiatives through Digital Storytelling?
• Poetry and the Parable: Blind Man & Elephant example using simply Keynote style

Go here if you need further info regarding the use of video in the classroom. The site offers student examples, lesson ideas and rubrics. I also have some film and video lesson ideas here on my wiki too that may be of interest. But the mother of all ideas may come from Alan Levine’s 50+ Web 2.0 Ways To Tell a Story.

I am wondering how many posts I can make on Google in a week? First it was this, then this and now this. Some busy people.