Digital Storytelling Part II

I have to say that I have really enjoyed the last two weeks of EDU 642.  I tried but came up really, really short with photoshop.  At that point my wife wasn't sure I was going to survive the course, much less me.  However, the digital storytelling has been a real joy.  I have dabbled with iMovie on my iPad (a little) with home photos and small digital videos, but never anything instructional.  I downloaded Movie Maker for my Windows PC (school issued).  After creating my first work (see Family History video in previous post) I have really taken to this format and mode of instruction.  I hope that the product lives up to the expectations. I get better with each instructional digital story and like the 250 words/12 images constraints (I have circled the wagons around about 300 words and 15-18 images.  I am working on my brevity, but indeed I really like this format and mode of delivery.  It suits the students well for advanced organizers (before the lesson) and review (after the unit).

The instructional digital story is for my World History course, unit #1.  See script below:

"The first core unit of World History is titled “rise of civilizations”.  Although this core unit encompasses many different cultures it can be distilled down to six basic historical concepts- “iTRACS”- institutions, technology, religion, agriculture, cities & specialization.  These are the basic building blocks of any civilization, any where.

First an institution is a significant practice, religion or organization in a society.  Early civilizations like Egypt had intricate religions and stratified methods of rule.  Hammurabi’s code is an example of a law code developed to make crime, civil disputes and punishments clear to all in society.

Second, technology existed to make life easier.  “Necessity is the mother of all invention” and in the ancient world, needs included faster, better, easier and more stable ways of producing food, communicating, building homes and making weapons.  A prime example of technology is writing.

Next, religion provided answers and order to an otherwise chaoctic and sometimes cruel world.  In the case of the Sumerians, they honored their gods by building structures called “ziggurats” in an attempt to get closer and closer to heaven.

Agriculture allowed humankind to remain in one place.  They reaped crops and harvested domesticated animals at a low caloric cost.  Agriculture could be called the linch-pin of society as without it, the others would not co-exist.

Cities are complex arrangements of humans whereby a food source and a potable, travelable water source (in most cases) is located nearby.  Cities provided a stable environment for specialization, technology and institutions to flourish.

Specialized tasks were able to appear because of food surpluses due to agriculture.  You have the farmer, the weaponmaker, the soldier, the weaver, the scribe and the ruler all doing very different albeit important jobs.

iTRACS is a central concept to early history and will be an important component of this course."

INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEOS FOR CLASS

The students that would view this instructional film would be tenth grade American History students.  Our district owns a DVD copy of an ABC series titled "The Century: America's Time" starring Peter Jennings as the host.  The series details the different eras in American History.  In this case, it is the beginning of the twentieth century.  This particular episode would be shown at the conclusion of a few different units of study: Labor Unions, Progressivism, Immigration and American Imperialism.

This is another example of an instructional documentary that would be shown in a tenth grade American History course.  It would be viewed after our final units of study: Reagan Revolution and End of the Cold War.  Showing these films after the lessons, reading and activities is a great summative organizer and visual representation of what they've learned.

Digital Storytelling

Digital Storytelling Video

Family History Inspiration Video for American History Class
(See Reflection Below)

Script:

"I've spent much of my life interested in the past.  I can remember temperate summer afternoons riding in my father's pick-up.  The windows were rolled down and either a Tigers game or Paul Harvey were humming on the AM radio.  I would listen with wonder as he regaled me with stories about his childhood.  The fights, the pranks, the gravel pit, the aunts and the uncles, the holidays and the more somber moments were woven into a tapestry that enveloped me.  Over time, history and family history became a passion.  I study and teach history not because I love names, dates and facts but rather because I'm enthralled with the common man and the individual stories that have built our country brick-by-brick.  My family is but a microcosm of the vast American story: a rogue redcoat desserts and joins up with George Washington, an Irish immigrant that worked the rails in Chicago, a tavern-keep in Carbon County, a garage owner in Sand Creek, milk maids in West Virginia, a 49er, a victim of the Spanish Influenza epidemic, World War One doughboys, bootleggers, preachers and USO workers.  The more I learn about American history the more I can connect to my own family's story.  Our story. 

The family history has taken me to many hidden hamlets and villages, hillsides and grave sites.  Along the way I've developed a sincere fascination with small town America.  The types of places with American legion halls, Friday night fish fries, a town hall and a greasy spoon mom-and-pop breakfast joint.  I'm a sucker for Norman Rockwell-like towns resplendent with firemen sipping cold beers on the steps of the engine house, mailmen that walk the route, ice creameries and corner bars.  Places like Weatherly, Pennsylvania, a place that seemed like it had somehow found a ripple in the space time continuum and existed in a fog halfway between 1945 and 2005.  And blue collar nooks like Parsons, West Virginia, a town that is nestled in the Appalachian foothills and serves fried pickles as a local delicacy.

I've chased down ghosts-specters that have no photographs just names on my family tree.  Names like Webster and Hezekiah, Nason and McGowan.

Family history is more than old photos and clippings, though.  It is our past and as 

they say, "past is prologue".  History is the process of assigning meaning to the past.  Soldering together the scraps of days long past and molding them into something we can understand, something we can grasp.  Someday, somewhere, someone will recall with fondness our names and tell our stories and attempt to pass on our history with fading accuracy with each succeeding generation.  

I wonder what they will say?"

REFLECTION:

1. In at least two paragraphs, describe which of the theories of multimedia from the Swisher article (week 1) apply to your digital storytelling projects (may be more than one).  You must clearly connect the work this week to Swisher's ideas, and indicate how your knowledge of the theoretical foundations of multimedia helped you better create a digital story that will enhance what you do in your classroom.  Upon reflection, you may also indicate what you might do differently with future use of digital stories based on your re-reading of the Swisher article. 

Of Swisher's theories of multimedia used in this digital storytelling, both the "Coherence Principle" and the "Redundancy Principle" are illustrated.  According to the Coherence Principle, "“students learn better 

when extraneous material is excluded rather than included"--furthermore--"the 

coherence principle involves eliminating irrelevant words and pictures, interesting but irrelevant sounds, and 

unnecessary words."  In the case of this digital storytelling about my own family history there is no text save the title and credits.  Students will listen to my narrative and hopefully be inspired to feel the same.  The idea was to paint a picture and "set the mood".  Extraneous words, material and information was stripped away and all you get is the haunting family images, the mellow soundtrack and my narration.

Insofar as the redundancy principle goes,“students learn better from animation and narration than from animation, narration, and text”.  My video exemplifies this principle.  The images speak for themselves while the narration couples nicely with the background music.  It is meant to create a "haunting" mood and inspirational tone that will hopefully strike a nostalgic chord with sixteen-year-olds.

2.  In at least one paragraph, discuss the copyright and creative commons implications for your work this week.  Did you use copyrighted or CC images, if so, did you use them properly?  Also, how might the ideas about copyright and CC inform how your share your work?  Upon reflection, you may also indicate what you might do differently with future use of digital stories based on your re-reading of the copyright and CC articles.

All of the photographs used in this digital story are owned by me.  They are family heirlooms that I have collected the last several years as the family genealogist.  I have a pretty extensive collection of photographs from 1960-2013, but have really worked hard to collect photos pre-WWII.  Many of the photographs used in this story are taken before 1945.  In regards to Creative Commons, I first looked for generic pictures to illustrate my script but opted to use something more intimate and connected to my own experiences.  In the end, I wish to inspire my American History students to do the same.   

Conclusion: I enjoyed the digital storytelling assignment and will definitely incorporate this methodology into my classroom for advanced organizers, online tutorials, review and classroom assignments.  

"A Thousand Words About World History"

Here it is.  The above image is the culmination of several evenings, a plethora of tutorials and a few back-and-forth emails.  It's quarter after nine so I thought it best to post this jpeg image as soon as I could.  It was in my interest to "place" this image into my blog so that I could start writing about it's significance in my classroom.  Although extremely rudimentary it does represent as significant lesson and/or concept in my classroom and in my content area.  Let me explain...

1) Students in World History spend the six weeks (almost the entire first quarter) reviewing previous material.  This content includes early civilizations, the age of empires and the middle ages.  This review is meant to serve as a foundation of the complimentary three quarters (the remainder of the 1st semester and all of the 2nd semester).  Students review such topics as classical Greece, the Mongolian horde, Inca empire and the Iroquois confederacy.

2)  Within the first five days of school we pre-test students.  On the seventy question pre-test, the first ten questions actually cover content they should have learned about in seventh grade.  Consistently students missed almost all of the first ten questions.  It became very evident that our opening six weeks ought to be spend reviewing the foundations of history and civilization.

3)  The above jpeg (photoshop image) could be used to help said review.  Over the course of the six weeks each student would be given a copy of the image.  As the six week preview would unfold students would annotate the map.  Annotations include a direct line draw from the historical images to the side of the map.  The students would include a title of the historical figure, approximate dates, and 3-5 important facts about the historical era.

4)  In the end, each historical figure - over the course of six weeks - would be completely annotated.  Visual representation of the content would help organize the concepts of review.

GIF Attempt "My Animated GIF for Teaching"


Swisher Connections (Reflection)


When creating the photoshop image (the annotated map activity) I considered Swisher's "Multimedia Theory" whereby "the presentation of material uses both words and pictures".  The principle, as Mayer states, insists that "students learn better from words and pictures than from words alone."  In my case, the map uses the multimedia theory to combine the map (geography), historical images (connection to historical concepts) and words (added later by the student).

As stated by Swisher, "visuals and multimedia for classroom instruction, instructors should ensure that disparate sources of information...are presented in an integrated format."  In this case, the map integrates the topics on top of the geographic locations where they would be located.  The multimedia theory principle applies in that students would use visuals and words to connect information and concepts.

All of the images, except for the hoplite image, were found on Creative Commons. The hoplite image was found using google and no copyrights could be found.  When I dug deeper I found the image on several historical websites but could not ascertain a copyright indication.  

Intro to Photoshop

I am three hours into working on my photoshop collage.  I watched the tutorials and did the practice sessions.  I am still trying to figure out how to "layer" and how to get my magnetic lasso to do its thing.  The only problem is, I don't have the slightest clue how to layer and the only thing I've lassoed in the past three hours is an Oberon.  In risking sounding like a country bumpkin, I am at best frustrated at worst about to throw my lap top through a wall.  I am a cut-and-dry high school history teacher that is super-interested in integrating media and the like into my classroom.  I have time for quick and easy tools that will enhance my daily learning goals (to use a Marzano term).  At best in the evening I have between three to four hours of steam after I put my daughter down for the night.  Photoshop I am sure is an incredible tool.  I am sure it is tons of fun once you get the hang of it.  I am sure that the educational process will be improved.  But not today and not tonight.  I am sure it takes hours and hours to master.  Hours I do not have (but wish I did).

It's funny because I sat in an all-day conference yesterday (sidenote to readers: I am a classroom educator...I function best moving, talking, walking and engaging) and sat at a table with my noble colleagues from other subject areas.  I dutifully listened for the first four hours to the details about our new evaluation process (Ahhhem...Found out at about four and half hours us chosen ones at the table would be the school "coaches" to explain to our own departments said process).  I began to fade at the five hour mark - I had eaten two chicken raps and two oatmeal raisin cookies thanks to the wonderful conference coordinators (I love a free lunch!).  By the sixth hour I was on my iPad planning out my next week, next month and then began jotting down (typing) ideas for my kick-off next fall.  By the closing remarks I had written my annual send-off poem for my fifth hour American history students.  What's funny is that I just tend to do the "fade and smile" -  the zone where you are listening and compliant but already moving on to the next project but my colleagues were a different story.  They found something to complain about.  The new nomenclature, the new system, the brand spanking new online tutorials, and even the powerpoint handbook we received walking through the door were all targets of their ire.

 That's not my style.  The same teachers that complain and talk over the conference presenter tend to be the very same teachers that bemoan the yahoo in the back of the class who cannot seem to pocket his iPhone or stop talking the cute girl in front of him.  And...when teachers complain, they go for the gold.  They convince themselves that the conference was of little or no use and that they learned nothing and to go one better, they "insist it will not work".  To that end, I just shrug my shoulders at the naysayers and reply, "I think it will all work out in the end."  They really hate hearing that.

Photoshop is like that conference and I am like my beleaguered colleagues.  The only difference is, although I am complaining now I hope, nay, know it will all work out in the end. (I hope)

More to come.
-BA