Digital Storytelling

In the years before PowerPoint hit the scene and before students had access to fast Internet connections, I used to use HyperStudio frequently. I used to make my own HyperStudio presentations with photographs and text to use as pre-reading activities. For example, before reading To Kill a Mockingbird, my students would view photos and artifacts and listen to music and poetry from the Jim Crow South to get a sense of the novel's context. I did the same with photographs and music to prepare my students for reading about Hasidic Jews in the Chaim Potol novel The Chosen. I think that this counts as digital storytelling, though my purpose with these presentations was really to lead my students towards the novels we were reading.


My students also made their own Hyperstudio stacks -- which I used to call "book talks on steroids." Students used photos they scanned or pictures they drew as well as text to give viewers a taste of the books they had read, and to interest viewers in their books.


This year I plan to have students create book trailers for their third quarter independent reading books using Windows Movie Maker. Just like in my old HyperStudio assignment, students will need to consider carefully how to represent their book through text and images.

I've also been thinking about how students could use their memoir essays to create a digital literature type project, condensing their essays into several memorable sentences. Kind of like a found poem assignment, but students would use their own writing. I envision the condensed memoirs would turn out to be something like the projects shown here:

http://http//bailiwick.lib.uiowa.edu/swiss/projects.htm

Through the process of selecting the most important words and phrases to represent their longer pieces, students are considering theme and word choice.