Rubric Madness!!!

 Assessing Digital Stories: The Opportunities and Challenges of New Media Evaluation

This chapter discussed how we evaluate student's work as we integrate technology and potentially digital story telling. I have not really considered this as a main challenge point until I read the discussion points brought up by Ohler. I think the most important thing he mentioned was the usefulness of assessing students throughout the process of creating a digital story. The end project is important, but you are also learning how to prepare on a  schedule towards a goal and create good steps that will ultimately lead to a quality end product. Project management skills are practical and applicable skills I feel a parent would be able to relate to as someone already in the work force. I also like the discussions on rubrics. While a long complex rubric can be a bit overwhelming it is the most efficient way to communicate precisely what you want your students to accomplish and the way you want them to accomplish it. I looked online for some web 2.0 tools to create rubrics and found the following web site. while you can always modify a rubric for your individual needs it is nice to have a place to start.

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

Go Teachers Go!!!

Digital Storytelling as an Educational Tool: Standards, Planning, and Literacy

The first thing that came to mind after reading this chapter was "wow I wish all teachers could read this I think they would be empowered realizing how much kids need their grounded knowledge". Yes, students these days are experts on youtube.com and most likely have a blog for everyday of the week documenting the teenage woes of Tuesday that is linked to their website they made named after their pet hamster. This being said many kids operate on a somewhat spastic level with technology and do not know how to use it in any sort of organized formal context that they can apply in either an academic community or a professional one.

 

This Kid Needs a TEACHER!!

 This is where the teachers come in! This chapter really talked about how the concrete knowledge of textual structure can be combined with the digital literacy of the students to create a powerful tool for learning. Many people have commented on the enlightenment of the DAOW but it is truly a great way to approach the concept of digital story telling and learning. The great amount of knowledge that students have access to before they even step into the classroom has transformed the role of the teacher from a provider of knowledge to a facilitator. Ohler said it well regarding teachers with different levels of digital proficiency,

"A non-technically oriented teacher with an open mind and good classroom management skills can be very successful in a digital age classroom. On the other end of the spectrum, teachers can decide that they need to have an advanced understanding of new media in order to be truly responsible and helpful. As long as they see themselves as a resource and not a gateway through which students need to pass to gain access to resources and knowledge, they too can be very successful."

Jason B. Ohler. Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity (p. 43). Kindle Edition. 

Bottom line is that students need what teachers in today's classrooms have to offer regardless of their digital literacy. If teachers can be honest with themselves about their own abilities and have the right attitude they can adjust to the classrooms of today and help students master their own skills and channel them in a constructive and positive way.

I think I have heard of these mutlimedia story telling things......

Defining and Discussing Digital Storytelling: Helping Teachers See, Think, and Talk About Digital Storytelling

As I was reading thorough this chapter it became very obvious that I have heard of something similar to an emotionally engaging education and multimedia story telling experience. I sifted through my classicist database of info in the depths of my brain that has been pushed back with all the compelling insurance information I have pile don top of it and remembered the Greek word aoidos (ἀοιδός). This work means singer in Greek. As many of you probably know most stories were passed down through oral story tellers. In ancient Greek these were told to a melody and a cadence. There were lot of these cadences but the most popular is "iambic pentameter" because it was used in one of the most famous stories the Aeneid. Iambic pentameter consists of a number of long and short syllables that dictate how the line is read based on how the consonants and vowels slow together int he line. The story tellers would remember this in the same way we all know every word to some random stupid song but can't remember vocab words to save our lives. 

By making the stories into long songs people remembered them and would pass them along. This is combining the theatrical involved performance of the story teller and the music since they are singing the story with valuable content. Stories such as the Aeneid not only taught national history and mythology but it also taught values and cultural lessons critical or anyone participating in society. (as a side note the Aeneid is Latin and the Odyssey is Greek but both cultures had similar storytellers but the roman story tellers came from the Greek storytellers)check out this video you will see what I mean.

If all this multimedia stuff worked for the ancients I am guessing it still applies...only with technology. But as Ohler has said, we want to add technology to storytelling in order to improve and enhance it not necessarily change the process.

In direct response to the reading I think it is helpful to give students guidelines for the project to help guide them to create what you are looking for in a specific example. I think placing too many restrictions of them in terms of what % of the video can be a certain type of music may bog down the process and restrict some of their creativity. I think solid examples provided at the beginning of the session a a few clarifying comments like "don't put music in the video that may detract from the meaning" may suffice.

Revelation On Revelations!

Confessions of a Digital Storytelling Teacher: Twenty Revelations About Digital Storytelling in Education

I am somewhat of an anomaly in this program in that I am not a teacher. I may have a teachers soul but that is not my current job. I am thus faced with a unique challenge to relate the readings, which typically focus on teaching, to my job as an insurance adjuster.....I think I have bridged the gap! By thinking of teaching as simply an effective information exchange I am able to link many of the concepts Ohler is discussing with my everyday challenges in my office. He hit the nail on the head when he said, 

"learning communities are primarily storytelling communities. Stories permeate our social fabric and have the primary function of teaching others, whether formally or informally. When you get right down to it, much of the communication that transpires among people, whether in classrooms, offices, living rooms, or the online communities that permeate the Internet, consists of telling stories" (Jason B. Ohler. Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity (pp. 6-7). Kindle Edition. )

When handling bodily injury claims we always say that every claim is the same and every claim is difference. I can't tell you how many rear end accident oft tissue neck and back claims I have had. This being said, when I want to discuss a claim with my boss I need to do what is called a "claims presentation". basically i tell him a brief STORY of what is going on in the claim. We need to describe everything from the damages to the cars, to the injuries, when they treated, who with, their job how much they make, are they married, kids, dependents, do they play sports or other physical activities, are they educated, would they make a good witness.....the list goes on. My boss needs to know if his is a 32 year old full time working single mother who needs to lift a two year old every day regardless of her back injuries. This is worth more as a claim then say another individual with less demands on them. 

We use this same format of presentation when we "roundtable" with colleagues to understand how they would value the claim. As a new rep to the BI department I am requested to sit in on these "roundtables" to help me learn more about different kinds of claims and absorb different perspectives on handling and evaluation. basically everyone as work sits around and shares claim stories to learn more for themselves and teach others. In relation to Ohler's revelations this is how we "organize information" and it shows how regardless of digital literacy the experience and depth of knowledge and experienced claims handler has is invaluable to the process of developing new adjuster. 

Revelation#1-Lisa

If we videotaped these claims presentations and used them as training tools I think it could be a very effective way to pass on and lock in information for the trainee.