Description and Reflection of Digital Storytelling

My digital story was created as an instructional tool to teach kindergarten students about the five senses. In the movie, I included video clips from www.unitedstreaming.com, pictures from www.pics4learning.com, and music from www.freeplaymusic.com. With the use of all of these tools I created a movie that will capture my students attention and maybe spark some interest in creating a movie of their own in the future. Since our group ranges from media specialists to elementary to high school we decided to use Moviemaker as an instructional tool instead of an actual example of how students use it. However, I will continue to work independently to create a story with two fourth grade students for staff development at my school. One student is writing a story to describe her experience with the hand, foot, and mouth virus. The other student is creating a story about her relationship with her stepfather. This was a very challenging project. It took many hours to create a four to seven minute clip. It is amazing what you can do with the application once you learn how to do it. I discovered that the best way to learn was through trial and error. There were many times that I had questions and didn’t know how to do something only to find that my team was having trouble also. I learned that I don’t back down from a challenge, but one time for about two days I felt very defeated because I was having trouble uploading a video. However, after the optional face to face(which should be required), a lot of my issues were cleared and I was ready to create my project. Another limitation was that I teach kindergarten and this program is not really fitting for a kindergarten student. However, I could see a teacher putting the pictures up and the students narrating or creating a story. Some of the tricks to moviemaker that I learned were that when you download a video form unitedstreaming that you only need to focus on the clips that you need. The whole video was too much. The next thing that I learned was that pictures and music need to be copyright free. I have started to bank some websites for future use in my favorites file on my laptop. Another important thing I discovered was how to time the music or adjust the pictures to the music. The above listed things are the most important things that I learned. I know I would use this in the future. How I will use it is still up in the air. However, I am not going to wait too long. I don’t want to fall victim to “if you don’t use it then you will lose it” theory. I hope by redelivering it over and over to my staff at my school, that it will stay forever in my brain. Here is the example that I created. http://stu.westga.edu/~kbowen1/moviemaker