Course Reflection-Week #5

I can't believe all the information that is being shared in this course. It's great! I have learned so much the last two weeks on podcasting and digital storytelling and have been introduced to so many new sights. I love how the class discussions expand too, for example I have been able to do some reflecting on 'listening skills' and how podcasting 'meets our curriculum expectations'. Lots of "food for thought". I have once again, not only progressed with my use of computers in the classroom, but I have also progressed with my own personal use of computers.

Steps for Creating Audio

I have to put this in my blog because this audio is all new for me and I don't want to forget the steps for my classroom.

Plug microphone in the mic outlet of the computer and you're ready to go.
Go to the Start menu . .
Go to Accessories . . .
Go to Entertainment . .
and select Sound Recorder...
Click on the circle to record and the square to stop
The saved file is a .wav file that Windows media player can read. This file can be duplicated and distributed.

Digital Storytelling

7 Elements of Digital Storytelling

1. Point (of view) In digital storytelling, we have combined the idea of point—the reason the story exists—with an emphasis that it come from a first-person perspective. These are personal stories and have some relevance for the storyteller, which is passed on to the audience.

2. Dramatic Question Digital stories are structured around a question, and the body of the story is the attempt of the storyteller to answer that question. The traditional arc of the digital story begins with the dramatic question, rises and falls around personal experience, and climaxes with a realization, which is often the result of critical reflection.

3. Emotional Content In the digital storytelling workshop, we often ask participants to tell powerful personal stories, and this emotional access to another’s experience is a major part of the story’s impact for an audience. The storytelling process allows the storyteller to make (new) meaning out of personal experience.

4. The Gift of Your Voice An important part of the experience of a digital story both for the storyteller and the audience is the voice of the storyteller. The sound of the storyteller’s voice adds a level of vulnerability and authenticity to the story.

5. The Power of the Soundtrack New media allows for easy access to musical recordings and ambient sounds to add layers of production to the story. The musical soundtrack is often called the manipulative part of the story, because music has such power to influence an audience’s emotional connection to a story.

6. Economy The normal digital story is 4-5 minutes long, and the written text is less than one double-spaced page of text. The typical story has approximately 30 visual images. This relatively small asset bank forces the storyteller to make critical choices about what and how to communicate layers of meaning in the story.

7. Pacing Successful stories make successful use of pace. The storyteller carefully considers how much to tell, show, or put in front of the audience at any given time, and also lets the story breathe, or pause, from time to time, especially at transitions.

The Basics of Adjusting Teaching Styles to Students' Learning Styles

The Basics of Adjusting Your Teaching Style to Students’ Learning Styles
http://www.teachersnetwork.org/ntol/howto/adjust/basics.htm
by Sharon Longert

Everyday we make instructional decisions before, during, and after we meet our students. These decisions lead us to tailor instruction to individuals or groups in our classrooms. Often the populations we work with have been labeled and our decisions are made in terms of these labels.
But within a label we will likely find academically diverse learners and this is why we need to move beyond the labels and make curriculum choices that complement our students’ interests, strengths and needs. Helping students to link what they are learning to daily living experiences keeps them engaged and motivated in the learning process. The effective teacher is constantly making decisions about how to present information to achieve this, as well as monitoring and adjusting presentations to accommodate individual differences and enhance the learning of all students.
When presenting content, effective teachers gain their students’ attention, interact positively with the students, review previously covered material, and provide an organization for the material, (e.g., graphic organizers, outlines, anticipation guides). Clear directions, adequate examples, and practice need to be provided in a relevant context for students. In addition, it is always important to keep in mind that some students learn facts more easily, while others are more adept at grasping concepts, some prefer concrete examples, others prefer abstract examples.

Now to some specific basics.

Listening-We take listening for granted, and like anything taken for granted, it’s important to occasionally revisit it for a fresh perspective. With that in mind, consider the following:
Listening is the cornerstone of learning.
Listening requires directing one’s attention to what is being said and then making sense of it.
Listening is a skill and requires practice.
Students spend over half of their time in school listening.

Most students can think at a much faster rate than people can speak, in order to gain and maintain students’ attention, they need to be listening first.
Some special needs students may need more time to process information while listening.
To ensure that all students are listening to the lesson, stop periodically and ask them to summarize in their own words; record any questions they have; respond or react to anything they have heard; or record, draw or write any other things that capture their thoughts. These form the basis for a Speak, Listen, Respond Log.

Activating Prior Knowledge-The prior knowledge a student brings to the lesson is key to linking to other learning. Effective teachers do not make assumptions about students’ prior knowledge, rather they plan for them.
Review- the content or skills from the previous lesson. This is the place for scaffolding information, as well as checking that skills from the previous lessons are accurately acquired. If the lessons haven’t been understood, now is the time to reteach them.
Provide- an anticipatory set to students at the start of the lesson to pique their interest and to help them connect to the content.
Reveal- the key components of the lesson to students so they can be motivated to respond and practice what they learn.

Reviewing-Reviewing the previous lesson provides distributed practice (a little bit each time repeatedly), and over time the information becomes automatic and can be called up from memory with little effort. These reviews are brief, fast and engaging and serve as a launching pad for the new lesson. Students can become the “teacher” for this portion of the lesson. A brief pre-planning meeting with student reviewers will ensure that they understand the format, content and the time period for delivery of the review.

Monitoring-Monitoring involves making decisions about how to provide feedback and how to keep students actively engaged while delivering instruction. Feedback should be immediate, frequent and provide explicit information that supports correct responses and models for improving incorrect responses. One way to monitor students’ progress is by walking around the classroom while the students are responding in their Logs. This is the perfect opportunity to provide clarification or to have students work with a study buddy. (Adapted from Merrill Harmin’s Strategies to Inspire Active Learning, Christopher-Gordon Publishers, 1995).

Listening Skills

Communication scholars estimate that listening takes up more waking hours than any other communication activity. Yet the typical person receives very little explicit listening instruction. In addition, people tend to think of listening as a passive rather than active behavior and, as a result, fail to recognize the amount of effort and skill it takes to be a good listener. The following information is designed to introduce you to two basic types of listening ? attentive and critical ? and to provide you with a clear sense of the skills you need in order to successfully respond to communication situations that require listening.

Listening Defined: the physical reality of hearing what another person says AND a suspenseful waiting that reflects psychological involvement with that person.

1. Attentive Listening

When people listen attentively, their goal is to understand and remember what they are hearing. In addition, attentive listeners have relational goals like giving a positive impression, advancing the relationship, or demonstrating care. Communication scholars have identified three listening skill clusters and accompanying behaviors that are used by attentive listeners. As you read the information below try to determine which, if any, of these behaviors you already use in your listening interactions. Then determine which new ones you should incorporate into your communication skill repertoire. As with learning any new skill, acquiring new communication behaviors requires practice. Be sure to take advantage of the practice time you are given in class before trying these behaviors out in other situations.

A. Attending skills
1. A posture of involvement: inclining one’s body toward the speaker, facing the speaker squarely, maintaining an open body position, positioning yourself an appropriate distance from the speaker
2. Appropriate body motion (occasionally nodding your head, using facial expressions to reflect emotions back to the speaker, adjusting your body position in non-distracting ways, etc.)
3. Eye contact (sustained, direct, reflective)
4. Nondistractive environment: doing as much as it takes to eliminate distracting noises, movement, etc.

B Following Skills
1. Door openers: noncoercive invitations to talk that tend to take one of four forms: a. description of another person’s body language, e.g. "You’re beaming, what’s up?" b. an invitation to talk or continue talking, e.g. "Please go on" c. silence, giving another person time to decide whether to talk d. attending to demonstrate interest, e.g. performing the attending skills described in section A above
2. Minimal encouragers: brief indicators to the other person that you’re with them, e.g. "mmhmm," "Oh?" "I see," "Right," "I understand," "Really?" "Go on," "Sure," etc.
3. Infrequent questions: open ended, asked one at a time; beware of the key listening error of asking too many questions
4. Attentive silence: most listeners talk too much, learn the value of using nonverbal attentive listening behaviors with verbal silence

C. Reflecting Skills
1. Paraphrasing: re-stating what you believe to be the essence of a speaker’s comments, e.g. "So you’re suggesting that we change the proposal?"
2. Reflecting feelings, e.g. "It sounds like you are angry with your group members"
3. Reflecting meanings (tying feelings to content), e.g. "So you were angry with your group members for pushing the proposal topic through without your input?"
4. Summative reflection, e.g. "If I understand correctly, you want the proposal topic to be changed and you want some kind of guarantee that proposal topics must be passed by all group members, right?" Some of the attentive listening behaviors described above may seem far more suited to an interpersonal communication situation than to a classroom lecture situation. The behaviors listed under A (attending skills) are the ones you are most likely to use in lecture classes. However, as indicated by the section of this Webpage devoted to Asking Questions, the skills under cluster C are useful for helping you ask good questions of clarification in class. In addition, the skills under clusters B and C are useful for helping you have good one-on-one exchanges with your professors, T.A.s, and classmates outside of class, for example, during office hours, lab sections, and group meetings. One important thing to remember about listening behaviors, however: they should never take attention away from the speaker. Like anything else, listening behaviors can be overdone and that undermines their usefulness.

2. Critical Listening
When people listen critically, their goal, in addition to understanding and remembering, is to evaluate (assess, interpret) what they are hearing. Whereas attentive listening emphasizes nonverbal skills along with some verbal skills, critical listening emphasizes critical thinking skills. Like Attentive listening, Critical listening is related to Asking Questions. Listening attentively enables you to ask good questions of clarification; listening critically provides the basis for good probing questions. Listed below are four critical thinking skills and two critical listening skills. Remember that practice is the key to successfully incorporating these skills into your communication repertoire.

A. Critical Thinking Skills
1. Questioning and challenging (from a position of goodwill and mutual goals)
2. Recognizing differences (e.g. between facts and opinions)
3. Forming opinions and supporting claims (determining what you think and why)
4. Putting ideas into a broader context (avoiding tunnel vision and bias)

B. Critical Listening Skills
1. Review and Preview as you listen: this involves anticipating where the speaker is going next, how the argument will be developed and what issues have been and/or should be covered.
2. Mapping as you listen: determining the thesis or purpose, identifying the main points, assessing the adequacy of the main points APPLICATION:
How do I put all this information into action so that I can speak or write effectively in this situation?

Why Use Digital Storytelling as a Learning Tool?

Why use DIGITAL STORYTELLING as a learning tool?

This website, http://www.district87.org/technology/dv/whyfolder/why.htm explains some excellent reasons why Digital Storytelling is a fantastic Learning Tool. It is interesting how these cover so much of our curriculum expectations...

It is what kids need.

We live in a visual world. Like it or not, students get most of their information from visual media, not merely written or spoken means. Television and the Internet are this generation’s predominant modes of gathering information. Teaching students to evaluate, create, and present information in multimedia form better prepares them to be effective communicators.

Digital storytelling helps students communicate messages effectively, concisely, and with a specific purpose and audience in mind.
Digital storytelling requires students to plan, cooperate with a team, and solve problems while working through the production process.
Digital storytelling to view writing skills in the broader context of communication.
Digital storytelling challenges students to strengthen their messages with media to increase the impact on their audience.
Digital storytelling helps students develop multimedia literacy and technology skills.

It is what kids want.

Students are highly motivated to create multimedia projects. Anyone who has provided students with a well-planned multimedia task has witnessed students who, of their own accord, brainstorm, cooperate, research, write, edit, problem-solve, analyze, and synthesize information.
Digital storytelling encourages students to discover, develop, intensify, apply, and extend their creativity.
Digital storytelling gives students the opportunity to find and use a new and compelling voice.
Digital storytelling empowers students to create in a medium that is meaningful to them.

It is what teachers need.

If we want to reach the “Nintendo Generation” we need to create lessons that lure students to learning using modalities that are a part of their everyday experience. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then educators need to capitalize on the tools that will make their lessons rich with media. Teachers need to make an impact, and media helps them accomplish this goal.
Digital storytelling provides a visual context for learning new information.
Digital storytelling addresses the different learning styles associated with a diverse student population.
Digital storytelling capitalizes on students' natural attraction to multimedia.

It is what teachers want.

Teachers want evidence that supports the growth of students' knowledge and skills. Teachers have long recognized that assessment takes on many forms. Even if mandated, standardized testing relies almost exclusively on paper and pencil assessments, parents and teachers require a broader view of student abilities than is provided by written assessment. If we truly want to find out what students have learned then we need to avail ourselves to the variety of products students can create.

Digital storytelling provides an authentic way for students to show what they know or have learned.
Digital storytelling requires students to use higher-level thinking and problem solving skills not always captured by traditional assessments.
Digital storytelling lends itself to peer evaluation more so than traditional paper and pencil assessments.

Tips for Teachers on Digital Storytelling

1. Learn from what you watch.
Think of movies you adore, movies you could watch again and again. What makes them so effective? Is it the dialogue, the character development, the way shots are framed? Likewise, consider movies so bad they make you squirm. Just why are they so excruciating? Work with your students to dissect several well-known films; you'll soon find yourselves with several categories that fall under the rubric of storytelling techniques. You will be amazed at how much you already know.

2. See technology as a storytelling tool, not as a teaching goal.
Though students need some knowledge of how to use equipment, teaching about technology should never be the focus of the curriculum. Simple editing programs such as iMovie are intuitive and easy to learn. If you have a camera and a computer with FireWire, you're ready to go; your creative aspirations will drive your technology learning curve. Once you think of an element you want to include that requires more advanced software or gear, you'll be compelled to learn how to use it.

3. Allow your students to push you (and lead you).
Don't be intimidated if your students learn faster than you do. Many of them are accustomed to quickly absorbing technology. Use their aptitude to your advantage by letting students teach each other; you'll find that they show their strengths fairly quickly. Within a class, you'll have great writers, editors, camera operators, and technicians. They can improve their weaker points while using their strengths to help others (including you).

4. Learn by trial and error.
Accept the fact that you will spend a portion of your time scratching your head, wondering, "Why won't that work?" Seek out resources where you can post questions and get answers quickly. (Creative Cow is an excellent online destination; it has sections for virtually every kind of production and postproduction software and hardware.) Every glitch will build your technology savvy until you get to the point where you can anticipate the kinds of problems students will have. Take heart in remembering that most great filmmakers come from a creative background, not a technical one; they depend on others to make technology work on their behalf.

5. Give your students freedom, but hold them accountable.
Kids are not used to the kind of freedom they'll need to do great creative work. Some will thrive in that environment, others will require close supervision to make sure they complete their projects. One good way to do this is to have students pitch a oneparagraph description of their project and provide a production schedule. In essence, it's a work contract.

6. Consider yourself the executive producer.
Work with your students as a partner learning about technology and storytelling, but don't forget that you call the shots. You have to be the arbiter of good taste and the studio boss who decides whether an idea is production worthy. Serving in this role as a teacher is actually much easier than it is for a real-live executive producer, because students naturally look to you for leadership.

7. Don't forget to celebrate your students' work.
Whether you show completed projects to the class alone or to the entire school or even the whole community, present the stories your students tell. There's a good chance their work will be much more professional than you expect, and lightyears beyond what your community might anticipate. A great side benefit of public showings is that your students will take their work very seriously. The knowledge that others are going to see it (and you can't hide C-quality work on a big screen) has been the source of tremendous inspiration for filmmakers for a hundred years.

From the Website: www.edutopia.org/magazine/ed1article.php?id=Art_1418&issue=dec_05