Reflection #2: Digital Storytelling-A Modern Day Personal Artifact!

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Digital storytelling was the topic discussed this week.  Digital storytelling is the use of multimedia to publicly share stories.  "A story is an account of events occurring over time," according to James Bruner, an advocate of Digital Storytelling.  What makes a story different from a lecture is that facts or accounts delivered in a story come alive.  Emotion, imagery, and a personal connection with the audience are key to a great story.  The process of making a story digital is important for teaching to learn to integrate in their classrooms.
The model of instruction has not changed much over the years (based on my observations student teaching and substitute teaching).  Teachers lecture about a certain topic for a set amount of time and students "absorb" the information.  The students are then assessed through subjective testing (i.e. Standardized Testing) .  I tried imitating my teachers and found my lectures to be dry.  Students do not respond well to my lectures and teaching becomes unpleasant.  Lectures on a daily basis can work well with some but I work well when I engage students through storytelling.  Digital storytelling is a tool I envision using in the classroom
Digital storytelling is more than just putting images on a slide and reciting facts.  Pre-writing, outlining, storyboarding, and reflection all take place in a digital storytelling project.  This is what makes digital storytelling a good method of integration of technology.  Students learn to write, organize, present, and use technology. 
Storytelling helps students and teachers share stories through personal narratives, which is important in our diverse communities.  Our presenter, Dr. Martha Green of Texas A&M, described digital storytelling as a way to create "personal artifacts."  These modern day artifacts can help solve community issues, create critical lessons, and empower students.  Digital storytelling is a great tool in establishing worldviews among students. 
Digital storytelling is an important tool for teachers to use in their classrooms.  Math and science teachers can use it to illustrate a problem through narratives and images.  There are many way to apply digital storytelling in our school which makes it an important tool for integrating technology in education.