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    March 22, 2006


      Digital Soft-Telling?

Digital storytelling has been receiving a tremendous amount of play
recently in the blogosphere and at conferences. You might even say it?s
the next newest bandwagon. In my district, we have had a digital
storytelling program for almost three years, with some phenomenal
products being produced. During that time, we were faced, like most who
are now initiating programs, with justifying such an activity against
the pressure to perform on standardized tests.

We?ve come to grips with this by focusing on the fundamental premise
that every activity like digital storytelling is grounded in a literacy
that we believe in, and that those literacies can help students succeed
in a variety of learning situations, testing included. In this case, two
very important literacies are embodied within digital storytelling:
writing and the ability to locate, interpret and use visual imagery.

Why do we do digital storytelling? I tell everyone this: it improves
writing skills (it does and we have evidence) and it makes students more
visually literate. But there is more. Something much more powerful?

So, given this interest, I?ve been watching the SITE conference in
Orlando <http://site.aace.org/conf/> very closely because they have many
presentations on digital storytelling going on (see the conference DST
blog <http://sitedigitalstory.blogspot.com/>), and also because Wes
Fryer is there, which means I can expect a detailed and thoughtful blog
entry about the various presentations he attends, and I can learn something.

One comment, buried in one of his posts
<http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2006/03/22/digital-storytelling-giving-purpose-to-pixels/>,
caught my eye.

(Don?t worry Wes, the comments to follow are not directed at you but at
whoever expressed them-I won?t shoot the messenger
<http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/blog/archives/2006/03/entry_1274.htm>.)

Here it is:

*This seems so ?soft? to many academics and others. *

Soft? You?ve never composed a digital story, have you? Until you have,
you have absolutely no standing to make that comment. And have you seen
kids do a digital story? Have you spent an entire day taking four pages
of narrative to ¾ of a page? Do you know the kind of writing that has to
take place to get that done? Have you seen kids use five software
programs simultaneously when working on their story? Have you seen a kid
do 21 re-writes to get their script right, without being asked? And have
their teacher roll-up his sleeves and provide feedback on all of those,
because it?s that important, but you know, that?s just one kid, and it
looks like it?s gonna be a long night, so make some coffee, because
there are 28 more to go? Have you kicked kids out of a packed library at
6:30 pm because they?re staying after school because the story is about
them and it has to be perfect, only to see the same kids lined up at 7
am waiting for the library to open? Have you seen senior AP Biology kids
three weeks from graduation lose it because the project demands are that
intense? Have you ever worked with a kid who is autistic who has had to
record their voice-over, and does it? Is that soft? Or a kid that can?t
find the words but is using a digital story to reconnect with estranged
siblings? Does soft describe that? How about a student with a disability
that never speaks in class by choice but records a voice-over. Soft? And
have you ever sat next to someone who is confronting a life-threatening
illness, and doing so by creating a digital story, who can barely get
through the voice-over because of the emotion, and you have to get up
and walk away because you just can?t find the words to console her?

Soft?

That?s funny.

All of us must deal with standards-based education. It?s a reality. But
when you don?t do things like this, when you don?t give kids the
opportunity, when you don?t harness the power of emotion and creativity
to do something great, then you truly have left children behind. Stop
talking about it, stop making excuses, and find a way. That?s what we
have always done, /in spite of everything/-and that?s what has always
made teaching, and teachers, great, and capable of changing a life forever?.

However, you can choose your content, because teaching the internal
anatomy of flatworms is important, and getting them to know what you
know is what's important. It might be on the test. You can choose to put
kids in the nice, tidy 6X5 classroom grid, and everyone, take out your
notes because what I?m */covering/* today will be on the test! Oh, and
pass in your worksheets from last night also. You can choose your
multiple choice tests, your standards, and you can choose to find every
excuse not to teach kids with something like digital storytelling, and
in the process, avoid doing something great that potentially has a
lifetime of value.

/*Now _that's_ soft.*/

Posted by David Jakes at 08:36 PM

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