Digital Storytelling Lesson (from Digitizing the Writing Workshop)
You will work together in groups of 4 to write a short collaborative story using Microsoft Word. Each student chooses a picture or visual image for their story prompt and begins to compose their story on a computer. After the allowed time, each person in the group will rotate to the next person's computer to build upon their story. Once you have contributed to every group member's story once they will return to their original computer. You will then finish their story by adding any additional images and text.
Considerations for your own classroom:
1. While this lesson can be adapted to fit elementary through secondary students, you'll want to consider how long you want to have students writing, based upon their grade level.
2. What the parameters for their finished stories will be (length, content, creativity)- in other words, assessment.
Considerations for your own classroom:
1. While this lesson can be adapted to fit elementary through secondary students, you'll want to consider how long you want to have students writing, based upon their grade level.
2. What the parameters for their finished stories will be (length, content, creativity)- in other words, assessment.
Using Pictures to Tell Stories (using Animoto)
Animoto is a free application (some of you discovered on the Web 2.0 assignment) that allows users to upload a set of pictures and create a short 30 second photo montage. This application is a good way to introduce multimedia creation to younger students or more advanced principles of visual literacy to older students. I used it as an introductory activity to measure reading comprehension in a high school world history class. If you're interested, take a look at the class guide.
You will create a short video presentation using the theme of "Important Things That a Student in My Classroom Should Know." Think about your own beliefs as an educator and what you want your students to know. Would that include items from the informal curriculum, like how to behave, treat each other, information about the teacher, or more formal content specific information? What should a student in your future classroom know? Your task is to find pictures that represent these items and use Animoto to display them.
You will create a short video presentation using the theme of "Important Things That a Student in My Classroom Should Know." Think about your own beliefs as an educator and what you want your students to know. Would that include items from the informal curriculum, like how to behave, treat each other, information about the teacher, or more formal content specific information? What should a student in your future classroom know? Your task is to find pictures that represent these items and use Animoto to display them.
Finding Copyright-Free Photos
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a wonderful source of copyright-free and Creative Commons images. It is particularly useful for finding historical images. Simply click on any image you find in Wikipedia and it will bring up a page with all of the source information listed. Many of the images are in the Public Domain.
Wikimedia Commons
The Wikimedia Commons is a huge database of more than 6 million media files that are freely usable, either because they are within the Public Domain, or because they have Creative Commons licenses. The site includes images, sounds, video, and more.
Google
When doing a Google image search, you can click on the Advanced Search link to access "Usage Rights." Setting Usage Rights to one of the "labeled for reuse" options will bring back images with Creative Commons licenses.
Flickr
You can read more about Flickr's Creative Commons licenses here.
Wikipedia is a wonderful source of copyright-free and Creative Commons images. It is particularly useful for finding historical images. Simply click on any image you find in Wikipedia and it will bring up a page with all of the source information listed. Many of the images are in the Public Domain.
Wikimedia Commons
The Wikimedia Commons is a huge database of more than 6 million media files that are freely usable, either because they are within the Public Domain, or because they have Creative Commons licenses. The site includes images, sounds, video, and more.
When doing a Google image search, you can click on the Advanced Search link to access "Usage Rights." Setting Usage Rights to one of the "labeled for reuse" options will bring back images with Creative Commons licenses.
Flickr
You can read more about Flickr's Creative Commons licenses here.
- Open Firefox or Internet Explorer
- Type www.flickr.com into the address bar and hit Return
- Type in a search term of your choosing and click Search
- On the next screen, click on Advanced Search
- Scroll down the page to Creative Commons and check:
- Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content
- Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon
- Click Search
- Click on the picture you want to download
- When the larger picture opens, look above it for options. If possible, click All Sizes
- Click Download the Small Size (or choose the size option that you desire)
- Save the file to your network folder or onto your desktop
- Note citation information (name of picture, and URL)