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=Helping Students Be Successful Making Digital Stories=

How are we spending our time today?

 * Definition and Examples of Digital Stories (about 25 minutes)
 * Overview of Movie Maker (about 25 minutes)
 * Brainstorm on how to differentiate students' learning with DS (about 10 minutes)
 * Questions (1 minute)
 * Time to explore Movie Maker on your own (about 29 minutes)

May 14, 2008 --- Refresher

 * Refresher on how to open and use Movie Maker
 * Time to share how we have used it in our classes
 * Tips on using Movie Maker
 * Introduction to Voice Thread
 * Time to experiment with Movie Maker and/or Voice Thread

//While we are logging on...what do you know about digital stories?//
to someone else ||
 * **What to do when the Flash Drive is handed to you...** ||
 * > * Put the Flash Drive in the USB Port
 * Open "My Computer" on your desktop
 * Open the Flash Drive (Kabod) by double-clicking on it
 * Find the "Digital Storytelling" Folder.
 * Click and drag it onto your desktop.
 * Take out the Flash Drive and give it

__Definition and Examples of Digital Stories__
Start with a student made digital story tutorial at the [|Digital Arts Alliance (DAA)] website (teacher/resources) > (right click, "Save Target As" on your desktop; then import audio into your project)
 * View a few digital stories:
 * Middle School examples from last year's MSU Tech Camp
 * Flowers, Whitney'sMovie2, Grand River
 * Central Elementary School (Okemos) [|daily announcements]
 * [|My Community Service example] and [|MacDonald 7th grade PSAs] (look in the Group lists under each hour)
 * Jason's example, [|Daddy Duty] and Storyboard worksheet
 * [|Mobile Learning Institute Teacher Site] A site for teachers (and my [|Dad was an Airman] from the RCWP inservice)
 * The Center for Digital Storytelling's Example, "[|MOMNOTMOM]"
 * Student examples on the [|DAA site] (teacher/resources)
 * Bernajean Porter's "[|Seven Steps]" to create a digital story
 * Assessment [|Digitales Assessment Page]
 * Sound effects and some longer audio clips at [|Partners in Rhyme]
 * Photos can be found at [|Flickr] or [|Creative Commons]

__Overview of Movie Maker__

 * Overview of [|Movie Maker]
 * Watch the beginning of a project
 * A few extra tips

__Time to explore Movie Maker on your own__
(The eight points below are on your bookmark if that's easier to read.)
 * 1) Open Movie Maker. You do that by clicking on START. Then click on PROGRAMS, then ACCESSORIES. You should see Movie Maker.
 * 2) Under FILE, you can "Save Project As" to your H:drive, to a Flashdrive, or to the desktop (if you don't want to save it) and name your project.
 * 3) In the Movie Tasks pane on the left, open Capture Video and then click on Import Pictures.
 * 4) Click on Desktop and then open the Digital Storytelling folder that you put on the desktop today
 * 5) Open the folder called Images.
 * 6) Click once on the top image; while holding down the Shift key, press the Down arrow until all the images are selected
 * 7) Click on Import.
 * 8) Begin clicking and dragging images down to the Timeline in the order you want them to be in. Under Edit Movie, experiment with video effects, video transitions, and titles. If you have time, incorporate audio (your voice or music from the Sample Music file).


 * P.S.**
 * Helping Teachers Be Successful Teaching Digital Stories**
 * Make a couple digital stories by yourself before you have your students do it.
 * After you've been through the process, you'll know the frustrations and joys your students will experience, so you can commiserate, problem solve, and celebrate with them. You'll also know some tricks and tips to help them along the way.
 * Make a sample digital story **on the same computers** your students will be using.
 * This way you can have a run-through on the exact location (which drive, which folder) they will be saving their files to; as a matter of fact, you should probably save a digital story, shut down the computer, start it back up, and make sure everything saved the way you wanted it to save.
 * Don't expect everything to go perfectly.
 * We're teachers, not computer experts. Computers freeze unexpectedly (save early, save often). Students save files on the desktop and our system wipes the desktop clean on every start. Things will go wrong. Students can learn from mistakes. It's okay. Sure it may prolong the lesson or add to everyone's frustration, but hopefully the next time you will take precautions (back up your files on a flash drive, for example).
 * Prepare to be bombarded with questions. Be patient.
 * I try to find out which students know something about the program we're using and ask them to help with the students' questions. I re-direct students to my handouts and my links page. They will still have approximately one million questions the first day, two million the second day, and then it will taper off. Expect this to happen. (If I'm wrong, you'll be overjoyed)

Evaluating Digital Stories
Keep the following in mind and give each section more or less points depending on your focus:
 * The writing (whether narration or printed on the slides) --- Is it clear, descriptive, original? Do the words match or line up with the images? Is there enough content and is it correct? Are the (printed) words spelled correctly?
 * The images --- Is the quality good? Are they colorful?
 * The narration --- Consider qualities of clarity of speech, volume, pace, pronunciation
 * The music --- Consider qualities of appropriateness to the subject, volume
 * The effects --- Consider the transitions between slides (enough? too many? distracting?) and the effects within an image's slide
 * The title and credits --- Time on screen (long enough to read or too long?), font (easy to read or not?), proper form?
 * The video clips (if any) --- Consider the amount, the length, the clarity of the pictures, the appropriateness to the overall message.
 * The length, pace, style --- Is it too short or long for the subject? A general rule is 3 - 5 minutes is a good average length for most digital stories. Does everything move along too fast or too slow?

My [[image:big10-04-top-03.gif width="79" height="32" link="http://bigten.cstv.com/"]] "Must Visit" Websites

 * 1) [|Photostory 3] --- A free digital story program that you can download to your computer; I'd say it is more user-friendly than Movie Maker, but is still not as functional and fun as IMovie.
 * 2) [|Jumpcut] --- A free, online digital story program that is fairly easy to use. Unfortunately, this website is being used by too many people in a racy way; you may not want to use it with students...or not use it at all.
 * 3) [|Teachers Teaching Teachers webcast] --- A treasure trove of insightful ways teachers can collaborate and grow (weekly webcasts and a wonderful archive).
 * 4) [|VoiceThread] --- A place where many people (sometimes people who have never met and never will) can comment on photos. A lesson on the importance of perspective. And educators have begun an "education-only" VoiceThread website called [|ed.voicethread]; it is a bit safer community of VoiceThreads created by students and teachers.
 * 5) Red Cedar Writing Project's wikispace --- Our local National Writing Project site and it's many resources for including writing and technology in your classroom, as well as a great community of teachers. Summer Institute dates: June 23 - July 17
 * 6) [|Digital Writing, Digital Teaching] --- The blog of my friend and first year CMU professor, Troy Hicks; he is a forward-thinking, articulate leader in the evolving process of how to use technology in the classroom in meaningful ways.
 * 7) [|Google for Educators] --- A wide selections of tools, activities, posters, and competitions for teachers and their students.
 * 8) [|Pageflakes] --- An aggregator for all the webpages that you like to visit. For an example, check out [|my personalized pageflakes page.]
 * 9) [|Make Beliefs Comixs] --- A fun, free place to make a short, personalized comics strip for yourself or a friend.
 * 10) [|Thinkfinity.org] --- Search for "digital stories" to get some good ideas for presenting digital stories at all levels.
 * 11) [|Webster's Visual Dictionary] --- It's the dictionary I wish I had when I was growing up: colorful pictures to learn from at my own pace. Too cool!



This wikispace was created by Aram Kabodian (kabodian_aa@elps.k12.mi.us). Feel free to email me with comments, suggestions, and questions. You can, of course, edit this space. I do ask that your additions stay on-topic and that you do not delete anyone else's work.