Digital Storytelling

Although I don't feel like the most creative person, I felt like I was able to really create something that I was proud of.  Telling stories are such a great way to learn about something.  Especially in history, where everything is a story, you can really find ways to connect with students.

I had a few problems with this project.  First, I had a difficult time deciding if I should tell a fictional story, or go with more of a report type of project.  I decided to go with the fictional story.  Jason thought that I would be able to connect with the audience better, and after I compared the two scripts, I agreed with him.  The next problem that I had was that I noticed the pictures were very grainy after I started the project.  I had to use them though.  They are the real pictures of the events that unfolded, and I felt that they were necessary even though some of them were hard to see.  I didn't do a great job of telling the story.  It seemed like it was obvious that I was reading a script.  If anyone has some ideas for making the dialogue more interesting, I would like to hear them.  One last thing, I have no idea if the names of some of the places are pronounced correctly.  I tried to figure it out, and now that I am finished and thinking with a clear head, I guess I could have asked Laron.  Oops.  

Great project.  Here is my rubric, script, story map, and of course the story.

Social Web

Teachers.net has been a valuable website for me this year.  Although it is not geared to my content area specifically, I was able to find a social studies chat board that I participated in from time to time over the last couple of months.  Although I didn't write a lot on the board, I was able to get in touch with some very interesting and well established social studies teachers. They were very friendly and generous with their insights and lending of materials.  I definitely will continue to use this resource in the future.

It is very comforting as a beginning teacher to know that there are people out there who are willing to share their successes and failures with others.  Too many times this year, I have seen and heard from other teachers how sometimes they feel on their own in the classroom.  I am sure some districts are different than others, but it is nice to know that there are places on the web that you can go to feel camaraderie with other professionals in your field.  You can visit the teachers.net social studies chat board here.

Internet Resources

I friend of mine made a comment on her Facebook page the other day trying to remember what she did on Sunday mornings before Facebook.  As I thought about her comment for a little while, it really struck me how much our society has fully embraced this new technology.  The Internet is a wonderful, valuable resource, and teachers should take full advantage of it.  The following are some Internet resources that I have found very helpful and valuable to me.

hippocampus.org

I found this website while doing some research for a lesson.  The short video clips for U.S. History are very in depth and to the point.  I have used them for gaining knowledge for myself and also as an anticipatory set or review.  The website was originally created to provided free multimedia content for general high school and college classes.  The lessons are thorough and engaging, and provide lots of information for discussion.

historyteacher.net

For a history teacher, this website is a bookmark must.  It was created by Ms. Pojer of Horace Greeley High School in New York.  According to the link on her website, it is ranked #7 on the best history websites page.  If you are looking for power points, test questions, proper citing webpages, maps, lesson plans, you name it, she has it.  There must be over a thousand links to everything related to social studies.  Awesome!

images.google.com/hosted/life

I have learned a lot this year about teaching history and one of the most important things is that many people can learn better when they can see what they are learning.  Life magazine recently put their entire collection of pictures on-line.  As a history teacher, this has been great. There are pictures of everything you could imagine dating back to when photography first started to become available during the Civil War.  This website has been a great resource for me as a supplement to my lessons  as it gives students a visual component to what I am trying to convey to them.