This year I’ve decided to add Photo Story 3 to my workshop offerings.  I don’t know why I’ve waited so long to introduce teachers and students to this extremely user-friendly program.  For a number of reasons (and I’ll limit myself to five), it’s a great beginning step into filmmaking and the art of digital storytelling. [...]

As the school year draws to a close, how do you document those moments, events, or projects that made a difference to you as a teacher – and to your students as learners? I really like the model National Writing Project colleague Bonnie Kaplan has produced. The combination of a 3rd person narrator using voice [...]

I’ve blogged about Mathew Needleman before. Since attending his CUE 08 presentation, I’ve been following his blog and have even written videoconferencing sessions with Mathew into my district’s current EETT grant. But if you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face with Mathew in real time or virtual time – or even if you have [...]

“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.” Stanley Kubric For the [...]

Helen Barrett is sharing her commitment to life-long portfolios and building the argument for portfolios in our own personal lives, not just for our students. Recommended book: The Power of Portfolios by Elizabeth Hebert – Aimed at elementary level. Link to Helen’s PowerPoint for session. Realizing I had my camera with me, I logged onto [...]

Arnie Abrams is opening the session by stating that digital storytelling should be more about the writing – and the writing process – than about the technology. Benefits of digital storytelling: can be made interactive provides real audience works for the “YouTube generation” helps develop visual literacy helps to understand mass media requires presentation skills [...]

Bernajean Porter is asking us the difference between a story and storytelling. It’s a “lesson learned” that raises a story to storytelling. We’re watching the sample The Music in My Heart, with the tip that when justifying storytelling in your curriculm, make sure you always end by focusing on the difference it makes to an [...]

Sunday morning, I received an email via the NWP Tech Liaison’s listserv from Scott Floyd. It was an invitation to check out a post in his A Piece of Mind blog about the recent violence in Kenya: I was fortunate enough recently to be in contact with someone who lived the Kenya unrest firsthand. She [...]

Thanks to Kevin H for posting about Mathew Needleman‘s re-launching of his Video in the Classroom site. I am always in search of good models of filmmaking in the classroom to share with elementary teachers and their students. I also want to recognize Mathew for his Open Court Resources.com site, “which aligns units of the [...]

Even higher on the New Year’s resolutions list than weight loss is my wish to improve my photography skills. In a nutshell, I suck at taking both stills and video. The more I watch well crafted digital stories, the more I recognize the need for some major video tips and tricks! I am therefore very [...]