Digital Storytelling

     A few years ago we in the A.V. department of my former school were surprised to find history students coming in to edit video interviews of WWII vets, WAC’s, and “Rosie the riveters.” It was a great learning experience for the students, but I wish we had been forewarned. Most of the half hour or more long videos were straight on headshots and just a few of them were two shots, including the student interviewer. ALL of them were done with a static camera. As interesting as these people’s stories were, they were tough to watch after the first few minutes. I know the point of the project was to create primary source documents and not digital stories per se. We did manage to assist with a few things in “post;” mainly helping students to insert and paste in other pictures and memorabilia over the video. The finished tapes were instant heirlooms for the families and may be of interest to a historian some day, but they really aren’t digital stories by any definition of the genre. They are unscripted interviews.
     You can turn interviews into interesting digital stories or at least add a little digital storytelling flavor. Have students go into the interview with a set of questions that are organized with the structure of a story in mind, but they also must be prepared to take the story where the interview goes. With a little (bordering on a lot) of extra work, the WWII interviews could have been broken up into chapters as stories on a DVD: getting drafted, basic training, combat, readjusting to home life…
     Another way to capture your community’s historical memory is to invite families and senior citizens in to tell their stories with the help of your digital native coaches - your students. My former school district has done this the last couple of years. Using volunteer staff (including an English teacher) and our student tech leaders, the seniors come in for five, two hour sessions and celebrate their stories on the big screen in the auditorium during the sixth. Our program  was inspired by the Center for Digital Storytelling and one of it’s off shoots, the BBC’s Capture Wales Project.


     My former district has created a site showcasing the seniors digital stories and sharing the resources we’ve drawn from. There is also a PowerPoint explaining the rationale and with the senior citizen workshop agenda.
     Use your digital storytelling skills to make some memories.

     Matt Monjan over on the Implementation blog posted a list of unitedstreaming resources for you to consider for your summer and beginning of the school year staff development. His article reminded me that there are a few digital storytelling aids tucked away in there too. You have to look a bit, but I’ve copied the "bread crumbs" here to save you some time searching. You will have to be logged in to your unitedstreaming account for the links to work.

Trainer’s Toolkit

     There is a PDF in the unitedstreaming in ACTION side box on Digital Storytelling basics and Audio Files. Don’t forget that there are plenty of good sound effects to be found in unitedstreaming in addition to the speeches and songs.

Professional Development > Featured Best Practice Segments > Teaching Tips
     Using Movie Maker to Create Your Own Movie
     Embedding Videos in PowerPoint

Professional Development > Featured Best Practice Segments > Teaching Tips > Teaching Tip Detail > Interactive Training > Project Demonstrations: Digital Editing

    There are two PDF’s of lesson plans in this section: one for Adobe Premiere Elements and the other for iMovie. They are, of course, basically applicable to any editing software. Consider interviewing Ronald Reagan or making a tourism commercial for Paris. In the Tutorials side box on the right you will also find PDF’s on the basics of editing in each program.

     …and Using Images to Make Movies is coming soon.

     I just got an email from my friends at the International Student Media Festival announcing a joint venture between them and the Hope Foundation (where "failure is not an option" is their trademark) to put together a video of K-12 student interviews to show to 2,000 educators at their international conference in the fall. Though there are some $150 gift certificates for the footage they use in their final product, it’s not a competition and you don’t have to do any editing, pay any fees or limit how many students are interviewed. Just send in your raw interview footage. Submission deadline is August 1, 2007, so get those student voices on tape before they’re gone for the summer. Here’s the text of what ISMF sent me.

"Voices of Youth is a joint pilot project between the HOPE Foundation and AECT designed to broadcast the voices of K-12 students from around the world to an audience of 2,000 leading educators worldwide in Denver, Colorado at the Failure Is Not an Option™: International Conference, October 23rd – 26th, 2007.

Voices of Youth will consist of ten 5-minute interviews that capture what young people
from different countries around the world are saying they want in their schools as well
as highlighting how teachers and other school leaders are meeting those needs. We will
edit these clips down to one single video and add music and visuals as needed for a final video lasting no more than 10 minutes.

We would like the interviews to be informal and conversational. There is no script, but the following prompts and questions will help steer the interviews in the right direction:
1). Please describe your school, your neighborhood, and your community.
2). What are your goals for your education?
3). What do you like most about your school? What do you like least?
4. What is the main obstacle you confront in realizing your potential in school?
5). What practices have your school leaders implemented to help you overcome the
obstacles you face? What additional help, or support, do you need?
6).  If you could wave a magic wand and make things happen in your school that would
help you learn better and succeed more, what would your teachers, principal, and others
in the school be doing differently?
7). What does “courage” mean to you? What examples of courageous leadership have you
seen from your teachers, your peers, or people in your community that motivate or
inspire you towards success?

There is no fee to enter and no limit to the number of entries you can submit. Those entries that are selected will receive recognition at the conference and HOPE will award a gift certificate of $150 to be used for technology purchases at your school for those entries chosen.

Please send your entries to the attention of: Andrew Libby, HOPE Foundation, 1252 N. Loesch Road, Bloomington, IN 47402-0906.

The deadline for entering submissions is August 1st, 2007.

About The HOPE Foundation
Founded in 1989, the HOPE Foundation (Harnessing Optimism and Potential through Education) is a non-profit, 501c3, whose Honorary Chair is Nobel Laureate, Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu. The mission of the HOPE Foundation is to support educational leaders over time to create school cultures where failure is not an option for any student."

       With apologies to David Pogue - In the last two days, I’ve had at least three requests for help locating the American Film Institute’s "21st CenturyEducator’s Handbook: Protocol and Materials Guide to the Screen Education Process" on the unitedstreaming site. A search on "AFI" will bring up the video clips and then a click on "Teacher’s Guide" will give you the downloadable PDF. If you have an account with AFI, you can also download a copy from the "teachers" drop down menu there.

     A big thank you to the PA DEN Leadership Council for organizing a “Lights! Camera! Education!” training in Pittsburgh last Friday and Saturday. It was an enthusiastic group of DEN members and candidates many of whom spent more time than I did to get to the Carnegie Science Center on the river by the stadiums. From a teacher eating tree to a retirement party, they took to the American Film Institute’s door scene exercise like Spielberg to Indiana Jones.  Battling the noises of the exhibits, the excitement of an elementary school sleep over (how do those chaperone’s do it?) and casting enough doors to fit the bill, they shot, wrote, sketched, shot some more, dollied, zoomed, craned, and finally edited their way to cinematic immortality just in time to make it over to the Pirates’ game on Saturday night.
     Here are the resources I promised them:

•   My “Makin’ Movies” intro presentation in PDF format. You will have to follow the links to get the videos and Google the commercials. Download AFIpa507.pdf

•   Resources from my two co-panelists at a recent Digital Storytelling 2.0 workshop. David Jakes lists a number of great websites to keep you current and Jon Orech reinforces the idea and tools of visual grammar.
•   “Guerrilla Graphics” which is still waiting for its overdue update and Web 2.0 additions. And my JB TV page with some past winners of our Chicagoland Television Educators Council H.S. video festival, video tips and exemplary movies.
•   Here’s the inexpensive wireless mic to help with sound quality either as a clip-on, hidden in a prop or on a “boom.” Run, don’t walk over to Geeks.com and order their $6.99 wireless headset microphone (WM-603-N) that even comes with batteries. But first make sure you have a camera that will take an external mic.

     And, of course, don’t forget to look in unitedstreaming for the “Lights! Camera! Education!” clips and the downloadable manual for integrating AFI’s program into any curriculum.

     Talk about telling your own story! Hall has posted about the grand opening of the Discovery Education Speakers Bureau over on his Media Matters blog. Normally, I would not engage in such shameless self promotion myself, but as a former speaker chair for our state conference, it’s a very handy service. AND the next step is to build a DEN teacher presenter page. Email Hall if you’re interested in sharing your story.

     With professional video tools available to anyone on any platform, the stage for “home-made” videos just keeps getting bigger.

      I got my weekly email from the Travel Channel this morning and it seems that they are hosting a contest for people to make a “FANtasy” commercial based on their own trip experiences. The Travel Channel is even supplying the music! The contest probably isn’t very appropriate or practical for schools considering all the permissions you would need. BUT it is a great idea for any class who would like to “sell” a trip to a place of interest in their local community or anywhere that is or WAS tied to what you are studying in your class. No need to share it beyond the walls of your classroom or school. Not too long ago a school district in Springfield, IL made a laser disc about Abraham Lincoln and his life in central Illinois. Foreign language classes could have a field day with this, virtually visiting and promoting a country in the target language. ESL/ELL students could not only use it to learn about places in the U.S., but also as a way to honor and share where they’ve come from themselves. Euclid or Pythagoras could promote the intellectual and aesthetic of their time and place. Green screen technology would lend itself well to this, but you don’t need that to simply cut in pictures of people and places. Travel anywhere through your curriculum. Bon voyage!
     This morning’s email also brought word from eSchool News that there is a debate in education over the value of video résumés. I think the selling points are obvious as is the hesitation. Being seen and heard is a two edged sword, but just how much more so than the slick, typed vitae or the anxious phone call? Coincidentally, our New York based actor/singer/dancer son has just landed his second out of state role with a combination of email attached song and a web video. In my former school district I helped athletes put together highlight tapes of their play to send out to colleges. There is a privacy inherent in sending a tape and I see that attempt to protect privacy in the two résumé websites that eSchool News cites: resumebook.tv and workblast.com . What do you think?