Message Stick Video.

Wow! what an amazing and inspiring video this is

I wrote a post on my blog earlier about how the use of ICT'S in class can foster an environment where every student is equal and I loved how all of the students were interacting with the technology, just as capable as any other student anywhere in Australia.


Seeing the students and how they worked with the music to tell there own story also inspired me as it was a great example of how students who are usually more withdrawn will express themselves through music.

The students in the community had few resources and very little support however were still able to overcome these barriers while in class through the use of multimedia devices to bring out their ideas and creativity.

The techniques that the film crew used obviously worked and considered the students culture and backgrounds and how they could use their experiences to tell there own story with fantastic outcomes and results.

As one of the elders in the video commented "without our culture, we'd be lost", and what the crew did not only engaged the students by using multimedia but allowed them to identify strongly with their culture which was what I loved the most about this video.

Digital Storytelling in the Classroom

Wow! at the moment I am pretty excited! after posting my rough outline of an action plan for assessment task 3 a few weeks ago on an idea of using digital story telling for a classroom to create a modern day interpretation of a fairy tale I have been stuck for ideas on how to actually achieve this! now I have so many options available I am trying to narrow the choices down!

At present I like move maker and photostory as they seem to be relatively easy to use. I believe that digital storytelling is a fantastic way of using ICT;s in class to put the RELATE, CREATE, DONATE frameworks into practice. Getting students to apply their work in digital storytelling also leads towards Mode 2 learning where students learn by doing something, or putting work into a practical application rather than just regurgitating declarative knowledge. Not that declarative knowledge is not a relevant part of learning, its just that using an application such as the ones listed on the web page on digital story telling gives students an avenue to put that declarative knowledge into good use which encourages creativity, collaborative learning and problem solving.

Using digital storytelling also gives us a way to work across KLA'S as no doubt we are trying to do for our lesson plans on our EPL'S! It also addresses dimension 4 in the dimensions of learning Use Knowledge Meaningfully as students get to develop their complex reasoning process in decision making, problem solving and invention in the task of creating their digital story. Here is another useful article which I found on the edutopia website which gives some further ideas on how we can use digital storytelling in the classroom. I also like this video on making a digital storytelling project in Photo Story which is the program I am leading towards. I love movie maker however as Photo story is free for me to upload I think I will be going with this!