Digital Storytelling...need input

[Laura Gardner]

Hello!

I'm taking an online course on Digital Storytelling and am VERY excited about all the possibilities for my students. For the course, I need to interview an educator who is currently using DS, but no one in my school is doing it. :( Can anyone help me out with the following questions?

How are you currently using digital storytelling OR dynamic media?

What tools are you using (hardware and software)?

What have been the benefits?

What challenges have you experienced?

Any advice or suggestions?

I really appreciate any help that anyone can give. If you would rather email me, that's fine, too: lgardner at dartmouthps dot org

Laura Gardner, MLIS, NBCT
Dartmouth Middle School
Dartmouth, MA
http://dartmouthps.dms.schoolfusion.us

[Laura Philip]

I've used Voicethread software at my previous school, and it was very successful. Here is a link to their website -- you can browse some samples and see a demo:
http://voicethread.com/#home

Voicethread does cost money, but I think it is relatively inexpensive. There is a learning curve to use it, and I would recommend using some professional development time (half day?) to show the teachers how to use the program.

What I liked about it was that once you have your finished product, others in your class can see and comment. I had a social studies teacher do a project where students created Voicethreads about the Federalist Papers (or something like that), and then each student needed to adopt a "persona" -- i.e. a slave from the south, a wealthy land owner up north, etc, -- and comment on how the issues would affect them personally. This was a great use of the comment feature, and eliminated the issue of students writing less meaningful comments like "great job", or "this is cool".

All in all, though, students and teachers found the program easy to use.

Good luck!