Anissa+Andrews

=Anissa Andrews =

Reflection:
As a media specialist in a small school with no Instructional Technology Specialist, I am often responsible for assisting teacher in incorporating technology into their instruction. Digital storytelling is a wonderful way to engage students in an academic topic as a "hook" in a lesson. Students can demonstrate their mastery of an academic concept and create a personal connection to the material by creating a digital story. Digital storytelling also gives students an engaging way to improve their writing skills. This project gave me the opportunity to explore digital storytelling and its benefit in the classroom. I enjoyed researching and creating my portion of the project. Through my research, I learned how teachers can create "Digital Storytelling Packages" for their students. In these packages, the teacher (or students) gather images, songs, sounds, video clips, etc that can be used to create digital stories. This reduces the amount of time students will take to locate these items and circumvents the frustrations often felt with battling the school's internet filters. These pre-made packages are important for younger students who may not have the computer skills necessary for creating stories. Having the media prepared will allow them to focus on putting everything together. Overall, I enjoyed working on this project, and I feel that I will be more prepared to assist teachers to use digital storytelling in their classrooms. My group members are strong, and we each worked to create a portion of the activity.