Susan Davis recently posted an article called "Seven Student Test Digital Story Telling Tools."(http://gettingsmart.com/2013/04/7-student-tested-digital-storytelling-tools/?buffer_share=ec18e&cid=dlvr.it) In the article, she allows her students the ability to explore various online story telling tools in her fifth and sixth grade classroom. Storytelling is an essential tool that aligns with the new found focus most states have adopted towards the common core. In fact, Kevin Hodgson has a great Prezi on this http://prezi.com/ip6t96y4v2lo/digital-storytelling-and-the-common-core/.
I love the idea of students creating their own stories using digital tools to increase student engagement and accessibility Out of all the ones she accents, I particularly love VoiceThread because of the ability to record longer audio files and the flexibility of choice the student has for photographs or images to include. I have actually suggested students be taught how to use Storybird as young as first grade. Unlike the applications Davis suggests, Storybird enables students to write out their stories. I would really like to see a digital tool that enables students to both record their voices reading the story and write out their story under the pictures. I do not see why it VoiceThread or the other tools cannot be used by younger children as well.
I also love the "how to" idea Hodgson suggests were students can use digital storytelling devices to have create instructional videos for class. This can also be used in high school foreign language classes to help students learn basic vocabulary by crafting a project where students have to instruct other students on how to do something in that language. These videos can be circulated throughout the class to teach different vocabulary as a method of "peer teaching." Also in terms of the older student, I can see AP Art History student's using VoiceThread to document their take on specific pieces of art or to create presentations for fellow classmates on the work of an artist. Thank you to Ms. Davis for introducing me to this fabulous tool.
If anyone knows of tool that does both audio and written storytelling, please let me know!
