Welcome to Collaborative Digital Stories!
Your main moderators for this week are Michelle Worgan and Juan Uribe.
We would like to thank all participants for choosing to join Digital Storytelling for Young Learners and hope that everyone will take away something useful from the session. We are here to help with any questions or difficulties you may come across when using the various tools, so please don't hesitate to drop us a line if you need anything.
Happy storytelling!
Weekly Outline
Week 4: Collaborative Digital Stories
During this week participants will:
- be introduced to collaborative web 2.0 tools that can be used for story-telling
- discover mobile apps for creating collaborative stories
- learn how to use a variety of collaborative tools for both writing stories and narrating stories with audio
- look at ways such tools can be used to enhance regular lessons
- discover forums for connecting with YL teachers worldwide to create collaborative stories
- participate in and contribute to the development of different stories using the tools demonstrated
- share and discuss their own ideas for developing stories digitally
- consider the teacher’s role in a collaborative story and how it should be guided and/or moderated
Week 4 Tasks
Task 1, Days 1-3: What are collaborative digital stories?
This week's tasks are all about collaborating to create digital stories. Your first task is to think about what is meant by "collaborative":
- What are collaborative stories? Have you ever created one with your learners? In what way was the story collaborative?
- What are the benefits of asking our students to collaborate?
- How would you organise a collaborative project such as a story on a larger scale, such as with learners from other classes, schools or even countries?
Post your answers to these questions in the Week 4 Discussion page and continue the discussion. We are looking forward to hearing your ideas!
Now you have tried and tested out some of the tools in our sandbox, it is time to think about how you can use these tools to create collaborative stories, Which tools would lend themselves particularly well to this type of story? Have a look at these examples and choose one you like, giving reasons for your choice in our Wk 4 Discussion page. Please add the title "Task 1" to the beginning of your comment, so we can organise them more easily later.
Summary of tasks for days 1-3:
a. Talk about the different ways in which students can collaborate to create a story and post your ideas in our Week 4 Discussion Page.
b. Respond to comments made by other participants in our Week 4 Discussion Page.
c. Look at these examples of collaborative stories and choose one you like. Explain why you like it in our DigiKids EVO Edmodo Group.
d. Visit the sandbox and play around with some of the tools. (Voicethread, etc.)
e. Post any queries you may have about the tools in the DigiKids EVO Edmodo Group.
Task 2, Days 2-5: Audio stories with VoiceThread
"A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too."
taken from the Voicethread website.
We can start by reading some of these blog posts about using Voicethread from our moderators:
We would like you to set up an account with VoiceThread in order to complete the next few tasks. Our main task is to contribute to an existing VoiceThread sharing with us your experiences of teaching young learners. You can choose the way in which you do so, by typing in the text box, recording your voice, or even recording a video. You can find tutorials on how to register and comment and how to create your own VoiceThread on our Week 4 tutorials page.
Once you have seen VoiceThread in use, explain how you would use the tool to make collaborative stories in your class, again on our Week 4 Discussion Page. Please add the title "Task 2" to the beginning of your comment, so we can organise them more easily later.
Finally, if you have not already done so, visit the #eltpics gallery on Flickr and browse the different topics.
Summary of tasks for days 2-5
a. Create an account with http://voicethread.com/
b. Share your experiences of teaching young learners in our example VoiceThread.
c. How can we use VoiceThread in class? Post your ideas in our Week 4 Discussion Page.
d. Visit the #eltpics gallery on Flickr and browse the different topics.
Task 3, Day 3: Collaborative written stories
A wiki such as the one we are using in this session, PBworks, can also be a suitable place for older students to create a more traditional, written story. Here is one example.
The main aim of a wiki is for dfferent people to provide input and share their knowledge (e.g. Wikipedia) so this makes them ideal for any type of ongoing collaborative work. Would you consider asking your students to create a story in this way? How might a wiki be more appropriate for a longer written story than the tools you have already used?
One of the advantages of a wiki is that it enables the teacher to take a more active role. The teacher is able to provide guidance and assistance as the story can be edited at any time. How would you, as a teacher, use the comments section at the bottom of each page, to guide and moderate the story as it takes shape?
There are also other tools that can be used for collaborative writing such as Google Docs, Primary Pad or blogs. How could you use such tools with your learners? What are the advatages and disadavantages of using them?
Finally, what can we do with the completed stories? Can you come up with any extension tasks based around the finished stories?
a. Discuss the pros and cons of using a wiki for collaborative written stories in the Week 4 Discussion Page.
b. Discuss how teachers can make use of the comments section to guide and moderate.
c. Exchange ideas for storytelling activities with other collaborative writing tools and the pros and cons of using them.
d. Say how you think teachers can extend lessons based on the completed stories in the Week 4 Discussion Page. Please add the title "Task 3" to the beginning of your comment, so we can organise them more easily later.
Task 4, Days 3-5: Create your own collaborative story
Your practical project is to collaborate with other course participants to create a story. You can collaborate on as many stories as you like. You can choose the topic of your story.
a. Choose a platform for your story (i.e. Voicethread, the Posterous app, Google Docs, PBworks).
b. Set up your story with an inital picture, paragraph or sentence.
c. Invite other participants to contribute by posting the link in our DigiKids EVO Edmodo Group.
d. When the story is "complete" email it to our Posterous group for all to see.
Task 5, Days 4-6: Showcase your work by attending our webinar
a. Attend our synchronous session on Sunday 10th February at 16:00 GMT or watch the recording.
Please attend our webinar to showcase your projects and ask questions! Sessions will be recorded, and the recordings shared in our archives, in case you can't attend. We will be using the Learning Times Elluminate Room. Your computer may take a few minutes to download the software and you will need to allow it to run. This is the webinar room link http://learningtimesevents.org/webheads/
If you've never attended a session in Elluminate, please do this tech check!
Webinar 1
Sunday, February 10th at 18:00 GMT (19:00 Barcelona, 20:00 Istanbul/Cairo, 23:00 Bangkok/Jakarta, 14:00 Beijing, 03:00 Tokyo Monday, 05:00 Melbourne Monday)
(What time is this for you?)
If you have never used Elluminate before, you will need to join and create an account and download a program before you can join the session (all free), so be sure to allow yourself enough time (or take care of the set up prior to Saturday). We'll have moderators on Skype to help.
b. Comment on other participants' stories.
c: Leave feedback on the tools used and their possible problems.
Checklist of Week 4 Tasks
I have.....
- taken part in a discussion on collaborative digital stories
- created an account and shared my experience of teaching young learners with Voicethread
- shared my ideas on how to use Voicethread in the classroom
- posted my reflections on using a wiki for writing stories
- played with some of the tools in the Sandbox and posted my reflections
- chosen one of the tools and started a collaborative story
- discovered ways to connect with other teachers
- attended the live webinar or watched the recording
Our Session Online Spaces
- Our Wiki- hosts our bios, an outline of the syllabus, FAQs, weekly tasks, and resources
- Our Livebinder of Resources- Click each tab to find a comprehensive list of our bookmarks, links, tools, etc. You can also copy this and edit it how you please.
- Posterous Spaces- This will be the place of your web portfolio of work.
- DigiKids EVO Edmodo Group- for discussion and collaboration for participants
Week 4 Summary
You can read the summary of this week's discussions and activities here.
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