As I was typing my Action Plan, I discovered that I really want to do something creative and visual with my students this year. The content that I am teaching has so much potential and I can't just simply give notes and lectures. Take, for example, World War II. I was recently researching this topic and the amount of primary sources, first-hand accounts, podcasts, digital histories, and documentation is amazing. I think I want to have my students create a digital documentary about one single topic, or one that sums up the entire year. Both have benefits. For example, if the students create a documentary on a single topic, they can focus more on that one topic and dive deeper into the material. However, if they must create a project that includes the entire century, they are forced to analyze events and pick and choose what they think are the most important events. Hmm... I think I will go with the latter.
I decided to do some preliminary research on using documentary creation as assessments. It was the kind of preliminary research that means typing a vague few words in Google and seeing what shows up. Much to my surprise, there is a lot of research out there on this stuff. How much of it is reputable, I do not know. But, I just wanted to see what people were saying about it.
So, I quickly found that "digital storytelling" is the accepted terminology, not my archeic term: "classroom documentary". The first thing I realized that I did not consider was time. Time is definitely an issue. In this blog entry, Jeri claims that her students required a lot of time to make a film, but she doesn't regret it. She said it is possible to do other things while this project is going on, and that's good.
Another issue are the objectives of this project. Some teachers may claim that students need to focus more on writing rather than making movies, but, as Jeri points out, it was definitely worth it and that students are learning regardless of whether or not they are writing an essay, taking a test, or creating a film. It all goes back to that age-old question of assessment. Some teachers are willing to take risks and assess in a way other than a test or essay.
So, as I muddled through the other blogs and sites on digital storytelling, I became a big discouraged. It seems like it requires a lot. A lot of planning, a lot of time, a lot of patience. But then, I saw this blog.
Doug Johnson's very inspiring blog post about how to design research projects that "rock" really gave me some hope. His comments about how motivational research projects really encourage higher-level thinking, make material relevant, and gives students choices and ownership of the assignment.
It may be a hard road ahead, but I think I'm going to attempt this digital storytelling thing. How bad can it be if it does all of those things Johnson claims it does?
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2 comments:
I think your digital storytelling will turn out as a remarkable experience for your kids. They will be engaged in what they are learning, and this beats a standard paper/pencil test any day!
I can relate to breaking away from the traditional assessments...taking the risk for me is sometimes a harder choice. But recently, I have been eager to change a few of the assessments in my classroom. Good luck with it!
Dan, here is another blog entry specifically on digital storytelling that you might find interesting:
Cog Dog Roo. This is really the topic of choice recently in many articles and blogs. Hopefully, you'll find the FLIP camera helpful in class tomorrow night!
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