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Blog Entry for Chapters 4-6 in Digital Storytelling
[A note about
me as a blogger: I am wrestling with exactly who I am writing this blog for. If this was a paper for Mark, then I would have
rewritten that last sentence so the preposition wasn’t at the end of the
sentence. But I am thinking this is less
like a paper, and after reading everyone’s blogs, and after reading that we were
supposed to write about what we find
helpful for learning about digital stories, that this blog is primarily for me,
and that I have an audience of my classmates and Mark that will read it and
possibly assist with my thinking. So
with that, I change my approach form last week, where I basically summarized. This week, I only write what added to my own
understanding about assessment and digital stories.]
Chapter 4 Assessing Digital Stories
A way to
have teachers consider assessment issues is to suggest they have an answer to a
potential question by parents, “Why did you have my child create a digital
story, and how did you grade it?” from page 63.
I am not sure that Ohler consciously used that question as a way to
embark on the notion of assessing, or if he just pointed out that parents will
ask that. In either case, embedding new
ideas in how teachers will use them in their work is always a better way to approach
professional learning. The other thing
such a question does is to provide the teacher with some space to answer the
question about assessment—she can consider it from a parent’s perspective
rather than her own. This shift in perspective
can allow teachers to try on more than one side of the issue, rather than
clinging to personal beliefs.
There are
other work products along the way to students producing a digital story which
can be useful in assessing students, i.e. scripts, work plans, visual representations
of stories or story maps or story boards.
Assessment
of media might include a time when a student defends their choices and
justifies their thinking. I agreed with
this thought and considered that such an event could be part of the complete
projects—an interview with the creator (the student) where there might be 2 or
3 questions that would be part of every interview, and the possibility that
there would be more questions. I am not
sure if this should be an interview with just the teacher, whole class, small
group or with some sort of panel of outside folks. That would probably depend on the project—and
that makes this sound like a huge endeavor.
I was thinking more along the lines of a couple of questions posed by
the teacher during an interview, after work was presented to the class. It could be that interview is digitally
recorded and reviewed later by the teacher—and not done live.
Chapter 5: Thinking About Story
Ohler spends
a great deal of time distinguishing between the story core and the story map
and the story board. I can see this is
because students probably have difficulty in fleshing out a good idea for a
story, but it seemed like a bit of overkill.
I kept waiting for the ideas to really help with students, which I figure
is the diagram and making sure it has all the representative parts. So to summarize:
- Story Core is the story of “how people change, learn, and grow” and presents a central challenge for such changing and learning and growing.
- Story Map depicts the emotional journey.
- Story Board depicts the events and details of the journey, and how the logistical bits of the story will fit together to create the events in the story.
Ohler speaks
about tension and how stories are better if tension isn’t just broken easily,
and the resolution to the problem happens too quickly. He cites McKee (1997) as suggesting a “seesaw”
approach to the resolution which would make varying degrees of tension in the
story. As I thought about this and about
mathematics—learning of mathematics should include some struggle, some
opportunities for students to persevere and try different strategies. Teachers have a tendency to over-scaffold—no fault
of their own, we were taught to scaffold and are only trying to help. But I can image that students in mathematics
classes applying DST might be telling a story like the one Ohler presented
about rolling a ball on a beach, in which the students tell the story of 2
things:
- First, asking their own question about why the ball skidded instead of rolling,
- Second, figuring out how to answer that question.
So a DST in math could be
structured like that, where the story is about how the students solving the problem
and their learning journey—and less a report about the solution. Moreover, the DST and the idea that there
should be tension in a story, could be connected with the idea for teachers,
that students need to struggle a bit (not too much just enough to know they can
overcome and that they have the power to attack the next task). The understanding that the story needs
tension to be a good story might assist teachers in overcoming the urge to over
scaffold as students are solving.
The picture of the story, the
Visual Portrait of the Story, was an interesting tool that seems like it would
be useful for students. I can see that
much of this is in line with giving multiple access points and using different
modalities in order to give access to the students—sound teaching
practice. I do have to say, that I would
love to see the power in the digitally telling the story—not that I doubt it
isn’t useful—I am just thinking that much of what Ohler describes is good for
non-digital reasons. Naturally we do
need to meet the kids where they are --starting with what they know is sound pedagogical
practice. If my students are digital in
their lives, then his point about making sure we actually teach students to be
better with it, makes sense. I guess I
am a bit like some of the respondents to the survey we conducted for our group
project in EDTE 282, I’d like to see a finished product that harnesses the
power of the digital world so I can say, “Oh yes, now that wouldn’t have been
nearly as good a learning experience without the digital media aspect.” [And now I
reflecting about blogging again, and wondering how much “journaling and
personal reflection” I should be doing, as I am probably boring the audience
while I process internally. Hmmmm…]
Chapter 6:
One useful
idea for actually implementing digital stories is the notion of keeping the
story map diagram to one page. This means
the creator must be able to pick out the important pieces and know how they fit
together to tell the story. The examples
of the story maps for the stories were helpful, but his method of leading up to
us creating a story map for the William Tell story was the most useful. I noted a connection to his telling of that
story and a strategy that is particularly useful in a mathematics
classroom. In math, if you want
students to state their reasons and to explain, then saying something wrong,
letting them catch you, and then asking how they knew it was wrong, is a good
strategy. It checks their understanding. It turns the accountability of making sense
of math and being correct in math over to the students instead of the teacher, and
it gives something to start from as they explain their reasoning that the
teacher is wrong. In this same way, he
created a story, a bad story, so we could discern what was missing. He suggested ways to improve it that were still
lacking, so that we could figure out why that didn’t work, and what a better
way to tell the story and create tension might be. Finally, he presented the story map that fit
the last version of the story. As I
think about it now, I can imagine story maps for the false starts he had, maps
with flat endings on the diagram, just like he talked us through.
[Blogging: I have
to admit, as I write, I cannot forget that I am writing something my classmates
will read, and it seems a bit self centered—not sure that is the right
word. But it seems overindulgent to
think you all will be as interested in my inner musing about why I found stuff
interesting or not. I am missing those visual
cues that one gets in face-to-face conversation, to know if I’ve said too
much. And I haven’t heard your ideas,
and had a fair exchange. So yes “overindulgent”
is the right word. I do apologize for my
musings above, and for this one here too.
It is how I process stuff.]
