Digital adventure

I have heard some very interesting stories about Digital Storytelling, from Kirk, Andrea and Susan. I have decided to embark on this adventure with my senior Français class!

Two units this year were 'Le schéma narratif' and 'La nouvelle littéraire'. With the gr 11-12's, we read and analysed short stories, picked them apart into their components, and their final task was to write an original story. It is now this final story that will be the starting point for the Digital Storytelling: the end is also the beginning!

Usually, I do a lot of thinking and pondering before I embark on something out of the ordinary. In our never-ending quest to 'entertain' our students and keep them motivated and interested, it is an all-encompassing endeavour at the best of times. Not to mention meeting learning outcomes and objectives. So, after having thought about it, I asked Kirk if I could have access to a mobile lab. My initial thought was that if the students could each have a computer at their disposal for a 2-3 week period of time, they could not only do their best work, but we would not disturb the students receiving a course in the senior lab in ZP. This has been an ongoing frustrating challenge-trying to use technology when it is not available without interfering in another teacher's lessons.

Kirk's first response was 'what do you need'? HUH?? That easy? I mistakenly thought that he needed me to convince him that a mobile lab would be used to the utmost in that block of time, so I created projects for all of the classes I teach. Overkill! No, no. What he needed to know was the details of ONE project, not 3. We made a plan to meet later in the week, as I was willing to do this project, but not too sure what it really entailed. I knew it involved storytelling on the computer, but what else?

When we met, he lead me through an overview of what Digital Storytelling involved. There is an audio part, a visual part, editing, revising, citing, reflection, -the list could go on to the proverbial sky's limit. The students would have basic components that they would have to have, then they would have free rein to be as creative (or not) as they chose. We did a lot of brainstorming and the basic premise is : tell a story in a new way, digitally. Since my students had already created a story, I decided to not have them start over and write another one just to go through the writing process. These are senior students, and although we can all improve our writing, I wanted to go further with the technology aspect.

When I gave the students a headsup, they all seemed excited about several things: having their own computer to work on, in class, on their own project; being able to tell their own story with their own creativity; having these stories on the website/blog for others to be able to see and hear, not only their classmates but also the elementary; and the possibility of using video cameras and still photography as well as surfing the internet for images to enhance their stories. A couple students asked if they could take their own pictures with them as actors. We did another unit this year on a combination of graphic-novel/comic strip, so asking to use these skills in another project was great! Talk about transferring!

So now, to make all of this into a concrete activity....