Ok, obviously digital storytelling was completely knew to me. After a significant amount of research I discovered that the overall concept is not that hard to understand. VoiceThread, slideCast or slideShare (digital storytelling) are all ways that anyone can use to communicate. That sounds very broad, and thats because it is. You can basically use these in anyway that best suites your need. Digital storytelling is a way for people to express themselves through technology in the form of a story. Their story can have music or voice sound, images, or text.
For me, in my future classroom, according to my unit plan (What impact do I have on the world?)using voiceThread would be perfect. Students could connect and communicate with different classrooms from across the world. This would be highly more significant than only blogging, or writing letters. In this form they could actually hear the other students voice while being able to see them at the same time. Talk about incorporating the multiple intelligences. SlideCast and SlideShare, could also be used in this way. Students could be assigned a topic to discuss, or a group question for the other class and help construct (by choosing pictures, recording voice, or choosing music) a VoiceThread, SlideShare/SlideCast they would like to share.
Hopefully being connected to other students of different cultures will help them to have a better understanding and tolerance of differences among people but mostly to understand how much alike we really are.Using these tools in other aspects of the classroom would be applicable also. For VoiceThread I could design a video, or music clip, or motivational prompt that would jumpstart a group discussion in order to introduce a new lesson, activity or book. SlideShare/SlideCast could be used to show pictures of students from previous years demonstrating a future activity for the class. Then when students finish the activity it is their turn to demonstrate for students next year.
Activity plan
I really like your ideas on using the VoiceThread for your unit plan. These give so possiblities for the Unit Plan theme you chose, I was kind of with you on this using Culture. It opens doors for students to learn about other culture. Also, these projects are easy to save therefore you could easily show your students what the students from the year before did. I liked your SlideShare as well, it is a good example to use for your classroom.
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