I have watched several Digital Stories and I have found it hard to decide on which one to put on my blog. They all are very touching stories and bring about deep emotional feelings. Deep Water was one of those deep emotional Digital stories. Deep Water is a Digital Story by Cindy Lollar. It is a story of a loving daughter who is deeply concern with her mother's illness that is threatening her life. Her mother has stage three ovarian cancer. The story was expressed with a lot of thoughtfulness and knowledge about this disease. This (Deep Water) presentation was very well organized with appropriate pictures, music, and narration.
I was totally impressed with the overall presentation of this Digital story. As a health teacher, I enjoy stories that can give meaning to what has been learned. By expressing the emotional aspects of stage lll ovarian cancer and how it affects the whole family, I feel these Digital Stories will generate student's interest in learning more about these diseases. As part of our Health Curriculum our students are required to do research on different types of diseases. These stories would be a great motivator for our students and allow for them to implement their research in a more interesting fashion.
The assessment of this Digital Story would be based on organization, presentation, appropriate display of images, music, and research information.
Location:West Chester,United States
Dave, I completely agree with you in that these stories will help to foster interest from the students, and it seems like that can be half the battle in education to begin with. If you can get the students to create the stories on their own and take ownership for their videos, it will make it all the better.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about your school, but I have passed some of the health classrooms in my hallways and see the outdated VHS videos that they are using with their classes. It seems that digital stories could effectively serve as an assignment and up-to-date source of information at the same time.
I really enjoy the idea of making research more interesting and personal for students through digital storytelling. Besides adding an already interesting format to engage students, DST can also make the content more significant and authentic, as students will be engaged in a real form of communication, rather than just writing a paper to be graded.
ReplyDeleteYou hit the nail on the head with your assessment ideas, Dave. As am instructor looking to effectively use this new medium for assess,nets, it's tough to envision what a well-crafted piece would look like. While we want to be objective, we also want to be fair. I always hear students lament about being graded on ability, and I think your assessment features of organization and presentation eliminate those concerns.
ReplyDeleteI too am a Health and Physical Education Teacher and am really interested in the idea of incorporating technology into my classroom. There is a ton of potential. Already I have used my ipad for one of my lessons, and the kids loved seeming themselves on its screen. (The lesson was on self esteem). I would love to have a project in which the kids could make their own digital story.
ReplyDeleteLove that you are planning to UP the effectiveness in your disease projects in Health. When I was student teaching, my supervising teacher did a similar project where every student picks a disease and just researches and fills out a form to learn about it more. A much more meaningful project would be to incorporate not only the facts of a disease, but how it affects someones life and the people around them. There would definitely be a great story telling potential! Students could also be more connected to their community & advocate for awareness! Lots of possibilities - and to go even further - students could plan a fundraiser or 5K race to help someone in the school or community with a particular disease.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy your ideas on how you would incorporate digital story telling into health and phys. ed. classes. I think this would really interest your students and I feel like they may put more effort into the project then they would if you were to just assign a research project.
ReplyDeleteI am thinking of fun activities, like Dance Dance Revolution. Isnt this a great way to release energy and good rhythmic moves? Film the best 5 scorers and this is a good presentation for kids.
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