Uses in the Classroom: As an English teacher, the possibilities for digital storytelling in the classroom are endless. For this assignment, I chose to create an example to show students of a persuasive book report using Windows Movie Maker. I would use this to help students recognize what a quality product would look like for this assignment, but students would then go on to create their own persuasive book reports using Windows Movie Maker, using the software to showcase the work they have already done; evaluating the quality of a literary text, and validating that opinion with evidence from the text.
Digital storytelling could also be used to create biographies or auto biographies. In the past I have had students collaborate with a partner to interview each other and create a documentary about his/her partner. Students spent time not only interviewing each other, but also collecting music and pictures for his/her interviewer. Because the subject and the director always had different opinions, students had to collaborate to synthesize the documentary media. These are only a few possibilities for digital storytelling in an English classroom!
Issues to Consider: Having had students work with Windows Movie Maker in the past, I know the many things that can go wrong, especially since I never took the time to learn how to use it before I set my students loose on the program! It is a free and user friendly program, however, there are several important things that must be done at various stages to avoid catastrophic result, and these things are not always apparent! For example, I had several students try to submit their movies to me as Movie Maker files, and I was unable to open them. Files need to be converted to movies before they can be viewed outside of Windows Movie Maker. There are a few other little "quirks" to the program like this one, but if you take the time ahead of time to know the programs you ask your kids to use, these problems can be avoided easily.
Copyright: This movie is an original of Angie Burns. Images were provided by Wikimedia.org and music was provided by Paniks live through freemusicarchive.org.
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