Digital Stories

Overall our experience with digital stories will be different for each one of us. I feel that there are a couple situations that I could implement digital stories into my classroom, but not all too many since I teach math. I have created a WebQuest for my students to explore and discover fractals with and I believe that this could be changed to incorporate digital stories. For the project students would need to explore four different viewpoints of fractals; a historian, an artist, a mathematician, and an applications expert. Examining these four different viewpoints will encourage them to analyze fractals as well as how they have been and are used today which are significant sections on Bloom's Taxonomy. Instead of having students create a PowerPoint I could have students create a digital story about the information. For our school it would be difficult because we do not have microphones on the individual computers. I believe students would work on many important 21st century skills such as building a quality presentation through images, video, the spoken word and/or music.  

Podcasting in Math

Podcasting is a unique way to share information with other through the spoken word instead of the written word.  I think podcasting could be used in a variety of classrooms but I feel that there is a limit to how many times it can be used in mathematics.  I think podcasts could be a great way for students to explain to other what they might have missed during a class period.  I believe that it is difficult to understand mathematics without visualizing how problems are solved which makes it difficult to incorporate podcasting into the curriculum.  I would be interested to find out how other math teachers are using them in their classes.  I find that it would be a beneficial way to do some professional development but other than that I find using it in mathematics it would be difficult.

Digital Stories and MATH?!?!

Really?  How can stories and math some how become combined within one curriculum?  I think they can be successfully.  I think that I will be able to implement digital stories into my curriculum as content preview for particular sections.  It would also be a great way to show students how the math that we are discussing in class is seen in the real world.  I also believe this would be a great way to show students how the various mathematical concepts are applied in various occupations.  This also might be a powerful assignment for students to complete on their own.  Have the students discover where math is seen in the world and what types of occupations utilize the mathematics we have studied throughout the year.  I am excited to try to incorporate these into my classroom and test them out with students.  We'll see how it goes.

Digi Stories and Voicethread

This past week in class we were able to look at digital stories as well as work at creating our own digital story on Voicethread.  This was a very interesting site but I felt there were some problems with it.  The story that we watched was about a little girl explaining her haircut.  It was a cute story but it was frustrating because it was supposed to be a sequential story but was continuously interrupted by people's comments about each slide.  It was a little frustrating because I just wanted to hear the story and not listen to what everyone else had to say about the story.  I am not sure if that can be fixed by not allowing people to make comments on individual slides except for the last one, but that will be something to figure out.  I feel that if this wasn't possible, Voicethread would be create to use for teachers if they are just seeking a reflection on a particular aspect of what was done in class that day or during that unit.  There are many other possible applications for digital stories, but not necessarily on Voicethread.