Search and Rescue - A Digital Speech

Our local Canadian Forces Base Anniversary Celebration was this past weekend.

This story is one of about 8 stories from a group of students I worked with this year in a 4th and 5th grade class. I was contacted by a teacher who thought that adding original digital stills and voiceover narration to the speeches her students were writing would add to the experience. Boy, did it ever!

I had the parents of these students tell me what an exciting time their children had creating their "digital speeches".

In this story, the student describes a scene in the Arctic. He didn't have to search creative commons for the photos. His dad was the pilot of the plane and provided the photos from one of his search and rescue missions.

As the student and I were finishing the story, his dad happened to stop by the school. We showed him the story. A very powerful and engaging 2 minutes of listening and watching followed. The look on the dad's face told it all.

Patrick Lowenthal's research on Digital Storytelling in the classroom, on page 252, Chapter 18 of "Story Circle, Digital Storytellling Around the world" supports this "digital speeches" project. Here is what he found:

Amplify Students' Voice

"Perhaps one of the greatest benefits is digital storytelling's ability to reach the many "unheard and unseen students" in our classrooms (Bull and Kajder 2004). Storytelling gives students voice (Burk 2000). However, digital storytelling can give students voice "in ways that are not possible without the technology" (Hofer and Swan 2006: 680) because it can amplify a students voice. Further, it can help give voice to struggling readers and writers. (Bull and Kajder 2004)

Digital Storytelling at NECC 2009

Digital Storytelling networking was a focus for me at NECC 2009 this year in Washington D.C.

During a delightful lunch with Bernajean [that's me in the middle] in the Second Life gathering spot, we talked about how folks are looking to write and experience stories which go deeper or higher. I mentioned that in a recent ETFO ICT mini-conference the DST sessions were the ones that were filled to capacity and had wait lists. Could it be that during these challenging economic times, people are longing to tell their story?

At Bernajean's poster session I bumped into Stevie Kline, a Technology Integrator and Teacher Trainer in Pennsylvania. She told me [with tears flowing] how attending Bernajean's digital storytelling camp in Colorado had changed her life and how creating a digital story about her father, was such a moving experience.

I also had a chance to speak with Jon Orech, a digital storyteller from Illinois. Jon talked about how he got started in DST and that he was fortunate to have a session with Joe Lambert at Berkeley. Jon talked about the first three characteristics of Joe Lambert's method; Point of View, Dramatic Question and Emotional Content and gave masterful explanations of how to skillfully get students and adults to write using these concepts.

I attended the DST "Birds of a Feather"session and was able to get first hand glimpse of the Video Nation, Frontline PBS connection to DST. This is a collection of stories on how technology has changed the lives of our youth. Rachel Dretzin was at the session and explained the PBS involvement and that they will be collecting stories along the way and producing a PBS Special in January of 2010 which will be a follow-up to the popular Growing Up On-line special.

All in all, a very rewarding experience on the digital storytelling front at NECC 2009. Now, time to reflect on all the great DST learning before my next session.