New Literacies Exploration

So, it looks like almost everyone has uploaded their New Literacies Exploration and I have had a chance to look at a lot of them--well, at least the ones with active links!

I chose to explore the realm of digital storytelling because it is something that I had never heard of before I stumbled upon a website about what it was and how it can be used. At first, I thought to myself, this seems like too much work. I watched a sample video called "The Look" which was created to teach jr. high students about science fiction--real science fiction that is. It's an interesting video, but my first thought was that it would take more time to make a video about it at home than it would to prepare a lesson a teach about it in the classroom. Then I thought some more--would it really? Would it take more time? No. Time is not the issue. Equipment would be my issue. After all, once you've made your video then you just have to press play the next day in your classroom.
But digitial storytelling, using The Look example, is really more that the time that it takes to create the document. It's really all about reaching your students. Face it, we live in a society today that puts the boob-tube on a pedastal! Most people spend a significant amount of their day in front of a TV screen and the quality of what they set before their eyes is piss poor--yet entertaining to some degree. Doesn't it make PERFECT sense to take the mode of information gathering that your students prefer and channel something high quality to them via it? I think so!
In order to really make my New Literacies Exploration my own I didn't want to simply recreate a document I'd already seen. As I was searching my brain trying to think of something to do for this assignment using what I have learned about digital storytelling I remember some pictures that I had from a trip to Shawnee Park Elementary in Grand Rapids. Shawnee Park has a phenomenal hearing impaired program and their focus is using Oral/Auditory training for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. In one of the classrooms I had visited, the students were putting their finishing touches on their "All About Me" books. I was able to take pictures of each page of one young boys book and upload those pictures into Microsoft Photo Story 3 (which I had downloaded during my learning portion of this exploration). Once I had the pictures I thought to myself, it would have been great if I could have recorded the little boy reading these pages to me--but that wasn't an option at the time being, so I found a willing male in my dorm to audio record. And walla, I have a digitial story!
I would encourage ANYONE and EVERYONE to check out digital storytelling because it is a great technology and it's EASY. The bottom line is that it is DOABLE in the classroom setting. It is NOT a huge, extensive project that you have to create--I created both of the stories embedded in my write up in less than 15 minutes--and you're students will LOVE it!
Too often I think we shy away from technology because there is a set-up time involved that we just don't have. It takes A LOT of time to create a classroom webpage and even more time to keep it updated. One thing I have observed in my various placement settings is that teachers rarely have that extra time. If we want to bring technology into our classrooms, we have to find applications that work for us!