Digital Story

A main thing that struck me about todays class was how quickly technology has shaped the classroom. A decade or two ago this class would cover about one tenth of the technology addressed in this course due to the fact it was too expensive or nonexistent. Another thing that struck me was how easy it is to construct a digital story. I feel as though I have a decent enough grasp on the program that I could tell one of my friends how to use the program. I also thought that the examples were a great source of ideas due to how much they varied in their acquisition of the photo as well as the narrative made by each individual student. It definitely gave me a few ideas of what I am going to do my story on and where I am going to get my pictures.

I think this is a great tool for students who have become either bored or disillusioned with writing. Writing something on paper quickly gets boring and having a teacher type if up for you and put it on fancy paper can only go so far. However, this method allows the children to see their ideas to come into fruition not just in words but images and would definitely get them excited about the writing process.
Another application I think that would be interesting for digital story telling is to have the students use a digital story to make a research project much more interesting. Like a podcast it would have students working together and learning from each other, but it adds the visual aspect that would give the finished product much appeal. In addition, finding photos relating to their topic would help them gain more knowledge through making visual connections and sense of the historical time period.

One question I still have is if there are any free or affordable programs for windows that allow for the use of video in the digital storytelling process.