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Lindsay Saylor (Burns)

LITR 630

Digital Story Written Component

June 28, 2017


For my Digital Story Assignment I was to create a Digital Story to use as a model for

students in Writing (narrative, argument/opinion, informative/explanatory) and to assist students

in developing the necessary skills for utilizing a new online literacy. For my Digital Story I

created a lesson that built upon both my Online Literacy Lesson and Wiki Lesson, and focused

on communicating information in order to create a Informative Writing Piece using a Digital

Story. The goal for this lesson was that students would be able to communicate the information

already gathered from the Internet to help students collaboratively publish an Informative

Writing Piece through creating a Digital Story. Students were exposed to a variety of activities in

an I Do, We Do, You Do format which allowed them to complete the activities in a gradual

release of responsibility format in order to meet students needs.

ILA Standards

This lesson meets a variety of ILA Standards. The first ILA Standard is Standard 1.2:

Candidates understand the historically shared knowledge of the profession and changes over

time in the perceptions of reading and writing development, processes, and components. This

lesson builds upon previous literacy technology lessons and has students working with digital

technology in order to publish an Informative Writing Piece, as opposed to traditional paper and

pencil. This lesson also allows students to use the Writing Process in a step-by-step format when

using the Story Map and Story Board organizers. The second ILA Standard is Standard 2.2:

Candidates use appropriate and varied instructional approaches, including those that develop

word recognition, language comprehension, strategic knowledge, and reading-writing

connections. This lesson helps students develop their writing skills in a step-by-step fashion, just

like the Writing Process and taking complete sentences to use in their Digital Story. Its allowing

them to orally rehearse their writing, recognizing words they need to include, using complete
sentences, etc. Its allowing them to put their writing together using these strategies into a digital

format.

The third ILA Standard is Standard 2.3: Candidates use a wide range of texts (e.g.

narrative, expository, and poetry) from traditional print, digital, and online resources. Students

had already began their Writing pieces using traditional print, and through the Wiki, but needed

to be exposed to and practice using more digital tools such as a Digital Story to communicate

information about animals so they can enhance their future Informative writing pieces. The

fourth ILA Standard is Standard 4.2: Candidates use a literacy curriculum and engage in

instructional practices that positively impact students knowledge, beliefs, and engagement with

the features of diversity. This lesson allows students to work together in small groups to create

something that they all can present to all of their classmates and every student has a chance to be

a part of the process. The fifth ILA Standard is Standard 5.1: Candidates design the physical

environment to optimize students use of traditional print, digital, and online resources in

reading and writing instruction. This lesson provides students with the opportunity to use what

they have used through traditional print (graphic organizer/story board) and turn it into a digital

resources/story using the program Photo Story 3. Students are also able to utilize the technology

available to them to do this which are the 3 student desktop computers to complete the Digital

Story Assignment.

ISTE Standards

This lesson meets several ISTE Standards. The first ISTE Standard is Standard 1:

Creativity and Innovation Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and

develop innovative products and processes using technology. This lesson specifically focuses on

Standard 1a: Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes, and
Standard 1b: Create original works as a means of personal or group expression. This lesson

meets these standards through using what they have previously searched for, located, and

synthesized in previous lessons, in order to communicate information for this lesson. It allows

students to use their creative thinking to put together a Digital Story about their groups animal.

It allows them to use a digital tool (Photo Story 3), add pictures, text, and audio in order to

communicate information. Each group will use Photo Story 3 to create their Digital Story which

allows groups to be original, creative, and resourceful when it comes to putting their digital story

together to portray an Informative Writing piece.

The second ISTE Standard is Standard 2: Communication and Collaboration - Students

use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a

distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others. This lesson

specifically focuses on Standard 2a: Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or

others employing a variety of digital environments and media, Standard 2b: Communicate

information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats, and

Standard 2d: Contribute to project teams to produce original works or solve problems. Students

need to practice working together and collaborating with other students to explore literacy

technologies. Through this lesson, students are able to collaborate to put a project together using

digital media, communicate their ideas effectively through the use of a digital story program and

prior planning, and produce and publish an original work, Informational Writing piece that is all

made by students.

The third ISTE Standard is Standard 3: Research and Information Fluency - Students

apply digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information. This lesson specifically focuses on

the ISTE Standard 3b and 3c. ISTE Standard 3b: Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize,
and ethically use information from a variety of sources and media and Standard 3c: Evaluate and

select information sources and digital tools based on the appropriateness to specific tasks.

Students meet these standards throughout the lesson by ethically using the information in order

to communicate the information appropriately using a variety of sources including: a Story Map,

a Story Board, and a digital tool, Photo Story 3. They are practicing the communication portion

of technology skills and strategies through making a Digital Story. This lesson also allows for

students to create their digital story and present/communicate it however they would like, based

on the information within their story maps and story boards. Students need to select the

information that makes the most sense in constructing an Informational Writing piece using

Photo Story 3 to then communicate the information to others.

The fourth ISTE Standard is Standard 4: Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and

Decision Making - Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage

projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and

resources. This lesson specifically focuses on the Standard 4b: Plan and manage activities to

develop a solution or complete a project. This lesson has students practicing organization skills,

planning skills, collaboration skills, and management skills, in order to complete their Digital

Story Assignment. Each group of students must plan what they want their digital story to look,

sound, and feel like, in order to communicate the information about their animal effectively and

efficiently.

Kentucky Teacher Standards (KTS)

The KTS Standard this lesson meets Kentucky Teacher Standard 6: The teacher

demonstrates implementation of technology, but specifically meets KTS Standards 6.1, 6.2, and

6.5. The first KTS Standard is KTS Standard 6.1: Uses available technology to design and plan
instruction. I had to think about the technology that was available within my classroom before

designing the lesson. Within the lesson I planned to incorporate a variety of available

technologies including: my teacher computer, the SMARTBoard, and 3 desktop computers. I had

to have these technologies drive my instruction for this lesson. The second KTS Standard is KTS

Standard 6.2: Uses available technology to implement instruction that facilitates student

learning. Throughout my lesson I implemented the use of a digital resource called Photo Story 3

to create a Digital Story. Using this resource would allow me to better facilitate student learning

through focus, time management, collaboration, engagement, and student accountability in

creating their own digital stories.

Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

The Common Core State Standards that were addressed in this lesson dealt with the

Writing Standards, W.K.2, W.K.6, and W.K.7. This lesson dealt with the Reading Informational

Text Standard RI.K.1, and the Speaking and Listening Standards SL.K.2, SL.K.5, and SL.K.6.

The first CCSS is CCSS W.K.2: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to

compose informative/explanatory texts in which they name what they are writing about and

supply some information about the topic. Students had to plan, organize, and write out what they

wanted to include in their Informative Writing digital story and give information about a specific

animal. The second CCSS is CCSS W.K.6: With guidance and support from adults, explore a

variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including collaboration with peers. Using

the I Do, We Do, You Do format, I was able to expose my students to a new literacy called

Photo Story 3. The students were to use this new literacy in collaborative small groups, to

produce and publish Informative Writing pieces to communicate information about their groups

animal.
The third CCSS is CCSS W.K.7: Participate in shared research and writing projects

(e.g., explore a number of books by a favorite author and express opinions about them).

Throughout this lesson students were to learn how to collaboratively present their Shared

Research information from previous lessons using a Digital Story format as their writing project.

The fourth CCSS is CCSS RI.K1: With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about

key details in a text. Students had to answer questions previously about the Online text and

within this lesson, had to figure out the most important of those key details to include in the

Digital Story.

The fifth CCSS is CCSS SL.K.2: Confirm understanding of a text read aloud or

information presented orally or through other media by asking and answering questions about

key details and requesting clarification if something is not understood. Throughout this lesson

students had to use their best judgement to pull out the most important key details about their

animal that they wanted to express and present in a digital format. When students complete the

We Do and the You Do parts of the lesson, they would be able to ask each other questions, ask

the teacher questions, and then answer questions after they present the information as well. That

way they could get clarification if they still needed some extra help, as well as clarify

information for their classmates too. The sixth CCSS is CCSS SL.K.5: Add drawings or other

visual displays to descriptions as desired to provide additional detail. Students added drawings

and pictures to their Story Maps, Story Boards, and Digital Stories using Photo Story 3. They

were either pictures they pulled from the Internet or drawings that they did using pencils and

crayons or drew them using technology. The seventh CCSS is CCSS SL.K.6: Speak audibly and

express thoughts, feelings, and ideas clearly. This would pertain to the You Do part of the lesson

when they are actually presenting and communicating their Digital Stories to the rest of the class.
I would expect students to speak loudly, clearly, and express their excitement through their audio

within their digital story and after their story plays.

Literature on Technology

Students have been previously introduced to the Internet and how we use specific kid-

friendly search engines to locate information about different topics. Then they were asked to

synthesize the information found and write about within a Wiki website. Students are now ready

to communicate the information about their animals found on the Internet further to and work

collaboratively in small-groups through incorporating technology (Photo Story 3) into literacy

instruction. Throughout this course, we have read a great deal of literature that discusses Digital

Storytelling, and my Digital Story lesson revolves around research completed by Bernard R.

Robin (2008) and Jason Ohler (2005).

According to Robin (2008), Digital storytelling allows computer users to become

creative storytellers through the traditional processes of selecting a topic, conducting some

research, writing a script, and developing an interesting story. The overall goal of my lesson

was that students would be able to communicate the information already gathered from the

Internet to help students collaboratively publish an Informative Writing Piece through creating a

Digital Story. Using Digital Storytelling to enhance their Informative Writing piece would allow

them to express themselves so much more, work collaboratively, get students excited about their

learning, and produce a finished product of their work that they would have never been able to

do using traditional paper and pencil.

According to Ohler (2005), Writing is key. Even though students' final products are

media-based, the most important tool used in the creation of a digital story is writing scripts and

story treatments. The whole point of this lesson was for students to write and create an
Informative Writing Piece using a digital storytelling tool, and in order to do that, they must still

go through the step-by-step Writing Process in order to do that. They collaborated and worked on

creating their own Story Maps and Story Board, which allowed them to enhance their writing

from the pictures they were going to use, to the order they would present the information, to the

script they had to write. It all ties together and is a part of what makes Digital Storytelling such a

wonderful concept to teach our students. Overall, it is crucial that we expose students to 21st

Century Literacies and Technology, such as Digital Storytelling, so they can be better prepared

for what technology is to come, how to use it effectively, and how to utilize it within a classroom

environment to become more successful writers in the future.

TPACK Model

The TPACK Model is the ability for teachers to focus and connect three primary forms of

knowledge: Technology, Pedagogy, and Content to effectively integrate technology within the

classroom. According to Davies (2011), In order to properly integrate technology into a school

setting, teacher and students must gain proficiency with specific technologies and have

opportunities to select technology tools to help them accomplish their learning goals. Within

this Digital Storytelling lesson, I had to provide my Content Knowledge (CK) of digital story

tools (Photo Story 3) to the students in order for them to understand what it was they were going

to be creating. I wanted them to create a Digital Story about their groups animal, just like I did

about Zebras. I had to also use my Content Knowledge (CK) to know what standards I was going

to use for this lesson, and how students were going to meet and hopefully master those standards.

I wanted them to be able to communicate their information effectively using their background

knowledge, previous lesson discussions/activities, and show their own understanding.


Within the lesson I was able to use my pedagogical knowledge through the ways in

which I taught the content based on differentiated instruction and meeting my students needs. I

used the I Do, We Do, You Do format in order to implement the gradual release of responsibility

throughout my lesson, even though we didnt get to the You Do section. I performed a lot of

modeling, guided practice, and then would have small-group collaboration in order for students

to fully understand how they were to use technology to complete the carious activities during the

next days lesson. I had to also model and show how I incorporated the use of my Story

Map/Organizer and Story Board with my script in order to create my Digital Story effectively.

Through connecting all of these elements together, it allows me to become better aware of the

TPACK Model and Standards within my lessons, and ensure that I am incorporating and using

them to reach students on a higher-level when it comes to technology. Overall, the TPACK

Framework allows technology to be heightened, used effectively, and enhance students whole

learning experience when it comes to literacy and literacy instruction.


References

Ohler, J. (2005). The World of Digital Storytelling. Educational Leadership: Learning in the

Digital Age, 63(4), 44-47. doi:10.4135/9781452277479.

Robin, B. R. (2008). Digital Storytelling: A Powerful Technology Tool for the 21st Century

Classroom. Theory Into Practice, 47(3), 220-228. doi:10.1080/00405840802153916.

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