Digital Storytelling Project

My digital story was a "how-to" video of basic bike maintenance and safety.  This would be incorporated into a middle school science or social studies unit on humans and living sustainably in our environment.

MT State Standards-Science Content Standard 5
5.4 Use scientific knowledge to investigate problems and their proposed solutions and evaluate those solutions while considering environmental impacts.


Bozeman Public Schools, District 7 Standards
HR1.0 Resources:  Students use scientific knowledge to investigate problems and their proposed solutions and evaluate those solutions while considering environmental impacts.
HR1.2. Students discuss how the use of natural resources affects their community/world, and how overuse of resources can have adverse effects on climate and society.


Students will be able to identify one human activity with negative environmental impact.  Then, students will develop their ideas with a "how-to" video depicting one way in which humans can reduce their environmental impact and how to do this activity effectively.

This project would be incorporated as part of a unit on sustainability and the environment in a science or social studies classroom.  In looking at human impacts on the environment, the class would engage in discussion on various human activities with adverse environmental impacts.  Then, students would choose one activity that they already do or would like to do in their lives to reduce their own environmental impact.  They would then produce a short "how-to" video that would instruct their peers how they can participate in this activity as well.  Using a digital story format makes the activity much more motivating and engaging.  The digital story turns out much like a Public Service Announcement.  Rather than making a poster board and doing a class presentation, students engage in making their own movie for peers.  This reduces the pressure of a presentation for quieter students, and also reduces the amount of resources (paper, etc.) used for a presentation.  Digital learning and projects can be used in a unit like this as a type of project that is more sustainable.  Digital storytelling makes this project much more interesting and enjoyable for students.

Initially this project takes more preparation by the teacher to be able to know all the skills and how to teach the iMovie program, but in the long run it would be more fun and engaging for students.  Perhaps these videos could even be published to a class or school website, or even a city website and students could feel as though their messages and digital stories were making a difference.  Student satisfaction would be much greater than simply a poster presentation in the classroom.

ASP Final Visit

The final Tech Club went very well.  Andi planned a great Mad Libs activity that the kids had a lot of fun with.  As it is the end of the school year, I strongly believe that having fun in Tech Club and After School is key. The students at this time of year are maxed out, and the more like a game we can make activities, the better.  We used the website http://www.eduplace.com/tales/ and had the students generate various Mad Libs.  Then we printed one out for each student and they could share with Tech Club if desired.  The students had a lot of fun and were fairly on task the entire time.  They were all pretty tired, apparently they had been on a field trip all day and had done a lot of walking around. 


Some thoughts on Tech Club, as a wrap up:


The club was fun, but fairly disorganized.  Students seemed to come and go as they pleased (i.e. if they didn't like what we were doing that day in the club, they would return to After School).  They seemed to think Tech Club was just to play computer games, so I don't know if that's what the last students did with them or if they were just inexperienced.  


There should be a list of students in Tech Club and they should commit to the club for 6 weeks (or the length of MSU student placement).  Our group varied day to day from 8 3rd grade boys to 15 students of various ages to 2 girls, one in 5th grade and one in 2nd grade.  It was challenging to plan a lesson or activity without any idea who is going to show up to the club.  


I understand it is the end of the year and students are pretty all over the place, as well as having other after school commitments, but it would be helpful to have a little more organization and consistency.