Digital Stortelling and Digital Cartography
This week’s MICDS Summer Teacher Institute workshops, which featured Alec Couros–Network Literacy and the Tools of Engagement, Kevin Jarrett–Literacy in the K-6 Classroom, and Kim Cofino–Connecting Across Continents, concluded yesterday with my dual topic session–Digital Storytelling and Digital Cartography. These two topics, each of which could comprise a full day (or more) of learning and experimentation, can engage students across all grade levels and disciplines.
Digital Storytelling
Digital storytelling (workshop wiki available here) utilizes text, images, audio, and video to create rich personal expressions. Unlike multimedia “presentations”, a true story considers the author’s point of view, includes a dramatic question and emotional content, is enhanced by voice and often a soundtrack, and is brief but properly paced. These elements, when combined with media in a structured process, can be transformed into a powerful tale:
For our session, we focused on seven popular tools for creating digital stories. Each has its strengths and limitations; the key is to match the tool to the task:
- Photo Story 3: Free Windows program that combines images, narration, and limited text; easy entry point into digital storytelling but can be used K-12.
- Ed.VoiceThread: Web-based, collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos.
- Xtranormal: Convert text-to-speech to create simple 3D movies that can include animations, sound, and expressions.
- Glogster.edu: Upload/combine images, audio, text, and video into an interactive, online poster.
- Animoto for Education: Create short music videos with images, audio and text; unlimited uploads with education account.
- Mixbook: Combine images and text into an e-book that be viewed online or ordered in print form.
- Movie Maker: Free Windows program for simple video editing.
Two keys consideration when using online storytelling tools are student privacy and teacher control. VoiceThread, Glogster, and Animoto offer education versions that address these issues for little to no cost.
Digital Cartography
Digital cartography (workshop wiki available here) facilitates geography and culture across the curriculum, and any discipline can be approached from a geographic perspective:
- Math concepts and explorations
- Scientific data and discoveries
- Literature tours and trips
- Historical places and maps
- Language and culture
- Art and music
Google Maps and Google Earth are perhaps the two most popular cartographic applications for the classroom. Google Maps offers custom maps, street view (select cities), photo, video, Wikipedia, and webcam overlays, and the ability to easily create placemarks with text, images, and video. Google Earth 5.0 brings an added dimension to the world and its new features include historical imagery, oceanic data, and the ability to create narrated tours.
Those wishing to work with data should consider GeoCommons, Gapminder, and/or WorldMapper. Combining statistical data, geography, and culture can truly enable students to view and understand the world as never before.
