We are focusing on our two media projects (photo and video montages) and expanding previous topics to now include the use of digital images and video. As such, consider how student use of digital images and video can allow them to meet learning goals and curriculum standards. What are the advantages of using video in the classroom? How can subjects, Math or your specialty area, best be learned using more visual technologies in concert with other digital technologies? What are the advantages to students producing their own “Digital Stories?” Which type of video project (according to Garetty and Schmidt) might your students be producing? How can visual technologies be integrated into literacy practices so that they can be seen as being “new” in some significant sense?
The use of video and digital storytelling in the educational realm, while not an entirely new concept, is still being looked at to understand all that it has to offer to the classroom. The great thing about videos is that, in watching them, there is both a visual and audio component, and in creating them, the student is acting out and creating the very concept he or she is studying in class. Some may not see the potential digital storytelling has for their area of expertise, but after reading these articles, it is obvious that this tool is very useful in all subjects taught.
Personally, I read these articles as though I was already a high school Spanish teacher and took from the articles as much as I could to be able to implement digital storytelling in my classroom. As mentioned in the article by Garetty and Schmidt, students who produce their own stories to share digitally with the class “increase writing skills and improve their oral recitation.” This is obviously beneficial in all areas of teaching, but I find that it could especially help out with the oral aspects of learning Spanish. While some students may be stronger in vocabulary, grammar, and reading, speaking a newly learned language is always difficult and often results in many shy students. Through the frequent use of digital storytelling, students are given the opportunity to voice what they are learning and better their oral skills. As far as which of the four types of storytelling I would find most helpful in my classroom, I see myself using traditional, learning, and social justice storytelling. Traditional storytelling comes across as a wild card; the type that leaves students most free to share what they wish. There are less guidelines in this type of storytelling, so I feel I would have beginning students use this just to become comfortable with vocabulary and speaking. Learning-type storytelling may be better for older students who know more grammatical rules and other concepts, and could be assigned to implement those different rules into their presentation. Even though social justice storytelling seems a bit off-base, I feel strongly that it would be useful in a Spanish classroom. Students may learn to speak Spanish, but in doing so they are submerged in the Latin culture and expected to explore and discover the different issues in such an area. Currently, Latinos and other Spanish-speaking peoples make up a large portion of our planet and are certainly present in much of the world news we read about today, so incorporating social justice storytelling into my classroom would indeed be beneficial.
Digital storytelling is quickly becoming an important component of learning and teaching in classrooms today. I find that digital storytelling allows a student to explore on his or her own the content s/he wants to incorporate in their project, and in doing so, possibly find other information that interests them. In creating one’s own artifact, a student is more engaged because s/he is in charge of all aspects of the project (content, narration, etc.). Students who create these projects are free to develop and construct their own stories while including within them concepts that they have already learned. I feel that this educational tool is extremely beneficial in the classroom, and it fits perfectly with my philosophy to treat each student as an individual and let him or her explore and discover his/her own interests while being engaged in the learning environment.