Digital Story Reflection Questions

1. What would you do differently if you could do it all over again? Are these changes based on feedback from your peers?


I think if I were to do this project over again, I would like to have more time to choose another topic. While my story was lighthearted and funny, the other Digital Stories I viewed were more specific and usable in the classroom with lessons for years to come. My story, on the other hand, was really created for one specific purpose and to be used on one specific day.



I can say, however, that while making the Digital Story, my students were very interested in the project and truly enjoyed helping with its production. This is one thing I would not change, having the students involved. I really appreciated being able to use pictures of them in real settings and having their feedback to make the story. (It was them who really helped direct my music choices.)

When reviewing my Digital Story and comparing it to what one student commented in Tom Banasziewski's 2002 article "Digital Storytelling Finds Its Place in the Classroom" posted on the MultiMedia Schools online journal, I still wonder if I "made all my thoughts and feelings come alive in an awesome movie." I do love my movie and think it really is very funny, but I'm not sure if it was my true vision? But then I also wonder, does it even matter what my true vision was? My students were involved for about 75%-80% of the planning and production of the movie and so the true question should be did their thoughts and feelings come alive in this Digital Story. That I will not be able to tell until I reveal the Digital Story to them next week, however, I plan to at the very least post an update to capture some of their reactions.





2. How would you implement a digital storytelling project in your class? Do you (will you) have the resources, time, and skills necessary to include such a project in your classroom?



I would love to have the students make their own Digital Stories to review books or create instructional stories of how to have appropriate literary discussions or writing workshop discussions. I think they would be very cooperative and would do a great job with this. As for the resources, time, and skills to include the project, I currently believe that we could, provided we had the students working in small groups and collaboratively creating stories, pull it off. Using a program like Photo Story 3 was very easy and I can see the students catching on very quickly to the skills necessary to produce their own Digital Stories.

I did get some great ideas from the Scott County School District Website about Digital Storytelling. Many of the stories presented on the site are about personal life experiences from the students, but some are about specific historical events like September 11th. I can definitely see my students next year creating Digital Stories for projects in Social Studies (we have a project the students do on countries in Africa and I think a Digital Story would be a great way to present those projects.) Truth is, the possibilities are endless, but unfortunately planning time is only one period a day.


3. Did you learn anything new from the process?



Absolutely, I learned that I could in fact make a Digital Story. It was much easier than I thought to create a story and realized that my students are true resources in creating future stories. Their enthusiasm to create stories and honest feedback holds true value to what I would want to include to grab their attention.


4. What did you like most/least about this project?



I most enjoyed working collaboratively with my students and found the process very fun. I least liked making mistakes in trying to save changes and realizing I've lost everything I've worked for (a few too many clicks can erase hours of work.)