Teaming Up!

     Still Planning for the school year and looking forward to the new possibilities. One of the new possibilities that I look forward to implementing in our learning process will be the teaming up with another class to work on our digital story telling.


     Developing stories will definitely be a learning process but an exciting one as we plan to meet and work with a 5th grade class in developing a digital story. "Story planning needs to be developmentally appropriate and suited to the age and skill level of the students"(Ohler, P.100).
Areas of consideration that we will learn to develop  in our digital story telling will be created through the "concepts like problem/solution and tension/resolution"(Ohler,P.100).  As we develop our stories and create our illustrations to describe our situations in these stories  we will ask question such as who is the character or characters in our story? or "how did our character change?" or "what's the difference in the character's life at the end?" or " what did he or she learn or figure out?"(Ohler, P.100).  


     Working with a 5th grade class will be a year long project. We will cover the topic of Bibliotherapy. Which is the process of dealing with difficulties in our every day life through the use of stories. As we get to know the students in 5th grade through the use of Skype, another skill learned in my digital media class, we will first develop a friendship. My  Kindergarten class and the  5th grade class will meet 2-3 times a six weeks through Skype the first semester. As I develop knowledge and understanding of my class I will then be able to pair my students  with the students of the 5th grade. From there we will meet our new friends during the 2nd semester to develop a one on one friendship. This will be done through monitoring conversations, on Skype, in weekly  computer lab.


     As our year progresses,  we will cover issues such a fear of storms, the dark, school,  dealing with strangers, acceptance of others, making mistakes and many others by using the stories read in class. I will then be able to provide the 5th grade with pictures of the stories I would like to read covering these issues. The 5th grade will provide a digital story of the picture provided text. Our Kindergarteners  will then be able to illustrate the stories through  drawings illustrating their own fears in the described situations and place them on disks. Together with the 5th grade we will create a digital story to help others deal with the same kinds of fears.


Ohler in his book on Digital Storytelling in the classroom describes eight levels of character transformation.(p.109).  Through Bibliotherapy, the we will become the characters in our stories. We will gain different aspects of character transformation such as 
1.  Inner strength; as we develop character to overcome our fears,
2.  Emotional: as we as the "Character matures, thinks beyond his or her own needs"(P.109).
3.  Social: as we as the "Character accepts new responsibility with respect to family, community, or a group"(P.109) in our case the group being the 5th graders.


     As we go through our adventure I will be looking for ways to evaluate the growth of my students. Ohler in his book on Digital Storytelling describes Bloom's Taxonomy of Cognitive "Transformation". He describes six different levels of transformation: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation(P.110). I will use these areas to check how my students progress through the process of Bibliotherapy and Digital Storytelling. I will look especially at the process of  Synthesis: "Character pieces together parts to form a new understanding of a situation."(Ohler, P.110). Wow, how amazing will it be to see how these young kids come to an understanding of their fears and to watch them overcome! I realize that it is not a simple as just reading a book, but it is the process of learning to understand why the fears are there and how to work through them. I look at this in a way of  Teaming Up and Synthesizing a into a new character.


     The one area I love most about my job is watching my class grow. I am always amazed at the learning process. My class as they comes to me at the beginning of the year I have such an expectation. For some reason though, I am always surprised at how we go form  not even being able to write our names to writing 2-3 line sentences  or a short paragraph, with understanding. From not being able to recognize numbers to doing simple math of addition and subtraction and complex age appropriate story problems. 


     The possibilities are amazing when I look at all of the different tools I will be able to incorporate in my classroom using 21st century Digital Media. The idea of Digital Storytelling has opened endless opportunities for new ways of teaching in my kindergarten classroom.


     Better get busy I have a lot of work to prepare! 


  

Digital Story Telling

     As the summer ends and the organization , well it's on going, it is now time to begin the planning of my year.  I have been taking a digital media class this summer at Hardin Simmons. One of the main topics of the class has been digital story telling. I have been really excited about this. I have actually learned how to create a digital story. Wow! Yes the process has been painful considering I am a digital immigrant, but I can not help but think about the possibilities that when creating these stories in my classroom how they will open up the imagination of my Kindergarten students.

     "Digital""refers to literally anything associated with the information age, and "story" means so many things to so many people that it defies strict definition.(Ohler, P.15).  When I think of all of the stories that will be relayed to me during the school year and how we can capture those in a way to tell them digitally, what great memories will be created  for my class.

     I will actually begin to tell stories digitally by using the storybooks I have in my classroom. Since "digital stories in education are typically driven by an academic goal, use low-end technology that is commonly available to students"(Ohler, P.16), even my Kindergarten class will be able to get involved.
This will happen for them in the form of drawing pictures to create their stories. Kindergarteners are extremely creative and they love to draw to express themselves and there feelings.

     As the school year progresses I will be able in a variety of ways, through self expression to capture  who my Kindergarteners are. The growth of their drawings, and reading and writing skills, along with the growth of their self expression will be used to create a story for each child in my class.

     Kindergarteners come to school already knowing what a story is. They for the most part understand that there is a beginning, a middle and an ending. We will develop this process as a story of our Kindergarten year. Ohler states that "kids come to school already understanding the story form", but lack "rhythm and imagination that makes stories so involving".(P.46).  As we create the story of our Kindergarten year we will watch our understanding and imagination grow!

     Wow, I have a lot of planning and a whole lot more organization to get to.

Beginning Of A New School Year!

The beginning of a new school year brings a lot of mixed feelings and a long and enjoyable summer. I first start to think of getting to see all of the wonderful ladies I teach with. Then my mind goes on to o' no I have so much work todo. I guess the first place to start would be to actually get my classroom organized

Here I go. As I come in to my class everything is out of its pace because of all the cleaning that takes place each summer. I look around  my room with exciting expectation. What kind of class will I have this year. Wow! No time for that I have to get organized. I have to get everything back in its place and just right for Meet the teacher night. I have my work cut out.

Arranging the desks will be my first priority. I have mine in place and then place the kids desks next. Organization it what I rely on. Time to get Organized!