Ambivalence with digital storytelling

I am ambivalent about digital stories. As we watched the examples from previous graduate students, I was wondering if all the technological bells-n-whistles of digital stories was sufficiently valuable to use it in my classroom-to-be. Then, I saw the examples of students using it to illustrate a concept they had learned and the excitement and interest in their voice seemed worth it. I was immediately thinking about how it would be useful for students to explore reading fluency using this technique, what drama it would add to readers theater, and other literacy lessons.

Then, I attempted it myself. Because I was doing a personal project from my own ancient (i.e. non-digital photography) archives, my frequent experience with technology was echoed again in this project. "Scanning is easy in the GMU lab. They have everything set up." So I go to scan my non-digital images and it does not work. First I call a fairly expert classmate over (thank you, expert again for your time) and he can not figure it out. Then, I go to the tech lab staff. And they mutter things like, "This is not supposed to do that. Why is it not responsive?" I thanked them for the time they put in to resolve whatever myriad of issues they solved finally to make it work.

Already as I watch the staff do the things I tried and so much more, I am scrapping ideas I had of having students incorporate their illustrations into their digital stories because getting the tech staff at our school to have time to problem-solve such issues takes longer at my field placement school than at in the GMU computer lab. So many teachers are not only taking advantage of the lessons the tech staff teaches, but they are having the tech staff solve the difficulties that arise with each component of all the technology that is used in their classrooms. It would be easier to find the tech staff if they had homing beacons or something. Once you find them, you must get on their calendar. I think Moses had an easier time parting the Red Sea.

Yes, eventually, the GMU tech staff are able to solve the problem. It just takes time and their expertise. Yet I am already keenly aware that time is a precious commodity in a teacher's day.

I finally get my images scanned and loaded into the software that we are using and import the music with the help of Dr. Weinberg. Again, a surge of optimism has me thinking that if I just scaled back the ideas I had for the classroom use, I would have students try a digital story or two.

Then, my classmates start to present their digital stories. I marveled at their problem-solving flexibility as colleague after colleague got up to play copies of their hard work and their copies did not want to play on the computer in the front of the classroom. While my classmates handled this situation with grace and creativity, I was thinking that I would need to be familiar with even more technology to create back-ups so my students would not experience this level of frustration at the end of the project. I somehow feel more confident that I could coach them through frustration during the project than at the end. More questions popped into my head. Would I be violating students privacy by putting their work on YouTube if I wanted this as my back-up for showing their work? Or can you set privacy settings like you can on Facebook (whose validity gets questioned fairly regularly). Another set of issues to be investigated and resolved on top of me needing to practice my fluency with this technology.

I mentioned the digital storytelling assignment to my eternally cheerful "base" teacher at my field placement school. Her Master's was not in Curriculum and Instruction, but Educational Technology and she has sworn to me that by December, she will have me feeling comfortable on the Smartboard and the other technology she uses with ease and speed. Of course, she loves digital stories, has the software loaded on her laptop and it is loaded on the school laptops (and probably down in the tech lab). This would allow me to skip having to re-read the helpful classmate's e-mail about troubleshooting loading the software on my version of Windows (oh fun, more problems to solve). Her laptop has a built-in microphone to make it easier to record. But, she borrows mikes from the tech staff when she has her students do it. Do I want to see some examples? She goes to show me and can not locate them immediately (another problem to be solved...), but will show me tomorrow. She assures me that the 25 painful, exhausting minutes it took to get 19 students to log on to Blackboard, just to look only at the buttons available for their grade and then log off with the help of no fewer than four staff members will soon become shortened to mere minutes. Then, she will teach the students projects like digital storytelling.

So I am still sitting with my ambivalence. Tomorrow, which is now today, I will try using the software we have used in our GMU class in my base teacher's laptop and using the microphone built-in to her laptop (while bringing another mike along that I borrowed). If it goes well, maybe her enthusiasm and my increasing comfort will encourage me to try it with my classroom-to-be.  Especially, as I look at websites that have lesson plans and more lesson plans.

Or maybe, my classroom-to-be will go with the low tech version of storyboards they illustrate themselves and narration just done live.