Creating a Digital Story

Session #4:

Creating a Digital Story:

Overview: Today’s lesson will teach students the basics of creating a digital story.

Short- Term Objectives:

Students will demonstrate ability to:

1. Use Windows Movie Maker Live or i Movie to upload images to their digital story.

2. Add text to their digital story.

3. Make strategic use of digital media to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence to add interest.

4. Exhibit command of the conventions of English grammar and usage when writing.

5. Exhibit command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

6. Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media.

Interactive Phase:

Activity #1: Introduction/Set-Focus Event: Watch this video: Digital Storytelling in Plain English

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP6CeGLPuOY

Note: Many schools block www.youtube.com. You may need permission from the system administer for this video.

Activity #2: Collecting images from the internet: Model for students how to save images from the internet. I suggest using a Google images search or http://www.flickr.com/ to gather historical images.

Bridge: "We're going to stop collecting images now and turn our attention to creating a digital story. You can go back later if you need to add more images."

Activity #3: Creating a Digital Story: Model for students how to create a digital story using Windows Movie Maker Live or I Movie. Modeling should include the following: Adding video & images, a title, captions to images, credits, how to use auto movie themes, add animations and visual effects, and change each slide duration. (My experience is with using Windows Live Movie Maker so features may differ on I Movie for Macs.)

Have students start uploading images to their digital story. Digital stories should be four to five minutes long so have students keep this in mind when adding images. Approximately 40 images at 7 second intervals should equal between four and five minutes.

Once students have finished uploading their images they can move on to upload text and work at their own pace on the digital story until the end of class.

With a few minutes left in class have students write down and troubleshooting problems they are having with their digital story. Address these issues at the beginning of next class.