Digital Storytelling

Many people have their opinions and theories about digital storytelling and how it should be used. Teachers can use them to interact with their students or set up presentations for their students to watch/listen/comment on. Their students can do digital storytelling of their own and get comments back from their teachers, classmates, and other students and teachers from around the world. It lets them know that their work is appreciated everywhere and there are others that are interested in what they have to present. Interaction is the main focus of digital storytelling. Comments, whether through audio or text (VoiceThread) can be helpful and allow students to get feedback on their work.

Students and teachers can teach each other and learn about people that live in different areas of the world and how the weather in their area of the world affects their physical appearance and allows them to adapt and survive the climates that they live in. Some students may wonder why their skin tone is different than their friend's or someone else in their class, or where in the world their family may have come from. By studying geography and taking note of the different weather conditions in the world, students may understand why they all look different from the others in their class. Some students have thicker eyelids than others because of harsher weather conditions. Those people that had thicker eyelids, like Eskimos, adapted to their surroundings to protect their eyes and survive.

Some projects that students can do are with art. Students can use butcher paper or posterboard to draw out a person. Each student will be assigned a different country and some information about the weather conditions of that area. They will be told whether that area is hot or cold, how much sunlight they get during the year or day, and whether they have harsh winds or severe weather. They will then get Colors Like Me paint, put it into small cups, and use Q-tips to put dots and show the different amounts of melanin in the skin. For every country that has people with light-complexions, use the lighter colors of people paint. If they have darker complexions, put a few drops of darker colored paint and mix them together so that they can see the skin color of people from their assigned country.

This is an example of what students will have to do to complete this assignment.