Digital Storytelling-Week Two

This week we had a lot to accomplish!!  We spent time looking at and creating VoiceThreads, learning about the six principles of presentations, and continuing to take pictures for our Posterous.

It was really great to learn about VoiceThreads.  I had heard for VoiceThreads before this class, as we had a small presentation done on them at a staff meeting last year.  After getting a chance to play with this application, I definitely see the benefits of using it.  The one benefit that I saw from it was the ability to create a presentation and reaching homebound students or sick students.  Unfortunately there are those cirrcumstances where sometimes kids cannot come to school due to illnesses.  VoiceThreads would be a way to reach them while they are home and allowing them to still be able to learn the information.  I also thought they could be used if I had a sub one day.  Often, I plan "simple," for a lack of better word, assignments when I have a sub.  It just seems easier because I don't know what their background knowledge is.  Creating VoiceThreads of all my presentations and having a worksheet to go with them, would be a great way for students to learn information without having to count on a sub to deliver it.

After looking at the six principles of presentations, I learned that not only will I always need to continue to enhance my presentations, but these six principles really do make a presentation great.  From now on, my goal is to focus on creating presentations away from my computer and trying to apply all of these principles to make truly great presentations.

As we continue to take pictures for our 28 Day challenge, I am truly enjoying every aspect of it.  I find that I'm really learning a lot about myself.  This activity has allowed me to stop and embrace the moment of a day, for just a minute, but it's also allowing me to see how much I really do throughout a day.  It definitely is a really fun activity, one that I might apply in the classroom.

In the next few weeks, I'm excited to see what we continue to learn and hopefully have time to tackle everything as the days get nicer...well hopefully get nicer!!

Digital Storytelling...Week One

I really enjoyed reading Presentation Zen. Personally, I hate that I have to teach PowerPoint because I think that it is WAY overused and that we can teach other technology that does the same thing. Outside of our PowerPoint unit, I encourage students to use other software that can convey the same message. Presentation Zen is one of those books they should require all teachers to read. I’ve seen some pretty content heavy presentations.


Learning about the concept of digital storytelling was also very cool. It was something I had never heard of before and definitely different than what I thought it was.
In this class I hope to learn how to embrace (if that’s the right word) PowerPoint and how it make it better than it really is. In my eyes, it’s dead, but I just use it because I have nothing else. I’m also very excited about incorporating digital storytelling into my classroom and learning more about it works.