Digital Story Rubric

This is a rubric I designed to go with my Digital Story unit. I assessed all four stages, Story Map, Script, Story Table and Production in my rubric. I have also included extra credit points for my students to work towards. The rubric can be viewed through evernote.

Click on the link to view the rubric: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s225/sh/5cdd1214-194e-4bc5-a1ed-3b8df1351147/37899303303c0c696ba2f666ada67805

Digital Story Production - Teaching Johnny

I am currently taking a course on digital stories. With the information from this course, I will understand how to create a digital story and integrate this with my reading lessons. I plan on having my students create digital stories on their school experiences and what goal they would like to achieve as they get older.

  In this course I have created story maps, scripts, story tables and productions through iMovie. The stages can be found below. Click on the links to see the different stages. Some links will open in evernote the productions will open in youtube.

Stage One: Story Map - Teaching Johnny
Click here to view it: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s225/sh/1444082a-8312-46a9-8450-c96df24d25c3/1939e238daede8a26e856055d35c4dad



Stage Two: Script - Teaching Johnny

Teaching Johnny

Johnny had never been to school before. He entered the classroom, put his belongings away and started talking to his friends. While he was talking I heard interesting sounds and words from Johnny. I completed a letter, sound assessment and found that Johnny didn’t know any letters or sounds from the alphabet and couldn’t read. He didn’t know how to use scissors correctly and writing for him was very difficult.

I contacted the special education teacher for suggestions on interventions in the classroom. After a few classroom observations by specialists, I was told to have Johnny lay on the floor to work on writing and strengthening his wrist. I was also told to have him sit on a ball instead of a chair.

The speech pathologist came in to the classroom and started to work with Johnny on his letter sounds. I set up a meeting with Johnny’s parents to discuss practice they could do at home with him. We met in my classroom after school. I started the meeting by telling Johnny’s parents what a great student he was and how well he was doing in math.

I then told his parents, “Johnny is having a difficult time with reading.” I showed his mom the assessments I had been giving Johnny. I showed his mom what letters Johnny was having difficulty with. Johnny’s mom replied “ I thought he might be having a slower development than other boys his age.” His mom started to tear up. I knew I had to say something quickly to make her feel better. I handed her a Kleenex and held her hand. I told her, “Johnny will be fine. We will work as a team and help him be successful.” I handed her a packet to take home and work with Johnny on it. The packet contained letter tracing, saying the letters, looking at a picture and trying to find what beginning sound the word started with.  

The next day at school, Johnny started being pulled for interventions. When he was in the classroom during reading he worked one – on- one with me. I progressed monitored Johnny every day and bi-weekly. I kept sending extra support material home with Johnny and gave his mom some skills to work on. Nothing seemed to work. I had promised his mom, he would be fine. I told myself, I was going to stick to this promise. He is not sliding through the cracks. I kept having the interventionists pull Johnny and any down time in the classroom; I pulled Johnny aside and worked with him one – on – one with letters, sounds and blending to make a word.

During the 3^rd Quarter assessments, Johnny and I sat down and went over letters, sounds and tried blending sounds together to read. It was a miracle. Johnny read a sentence by himself. I could feel tears gathering in my eyes. I knew I didn’t want to cry in front of Johnny, so I gave Johnny a high five and a huge hug. Johnny’s face lit up and he smiled from ear to ear. Johnny looked up at me and said, with a lot of excitement, “I know my letters! I can’t wait to show my mom.”

         A miracle? No, it wasn’t a miracle; it was the teamwork with the staff and his parents that helped Johnny with his success. All of the practice at school and at home finally paid off. Johnny was able to read and write sentences. When Johnny’s mom came to pick him up after school, he showed her his 100% reading test. Tears strolled down her face. She didn’t say anything just gave me a huge hug. I knew what she wanted to say, but couldn’t find the words. It was a great moment out of my teaching career.

We are still working on his handwriting and letter formation. Johnny is reading in class and helping friends who are still struggling. It is a wonderful site to see.  

Stage Three: Story Table - Teaching Johnny

Click here to view it: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s225/sh/c9b4e25d-b37b-4d23-bea6-a0f0a01fba11/46c48af96e56c1303c8a18798c38267e

Stage Four: Digital Story Production - Teaching Johnny

This is the final production of the digital story, Teaching Johnny. Click here to view it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DFxBN610es&feature=youtu.be

The production will be viewed through Youtube.

Reflection:

I enjoyed writing about a professional experience I had while teaching. I found creating productions in iMovie takes a long time. To do this in my classroom, I need to plan a couple months for the stages and production to be completed. I had a lot of time to work on this project, but my students would only have a couple hours a day to work on it.
It would be important before starting this production to show my students a final piece. This way, my students always have the end in mind. What the project will look like after all the work is finished.
When I first created a digital story, I had no idea how it was going to look like. It wasn't until I finished the production and watched it, that I realized what a digital story was.
I still have issues with iMovie. During this production I had completed the whole recording, but didn't realize that if I didn't insert enough pictures in my library, that the recording would stop. I was working on the clips, when I realized the recording, I thought was inserted was completely gone. I thought iMovie had lost all of my work and that I would have to start over. I realized this was not the case after a few hours experimenting with iMovie. If there are not enough clips in the library, the recording ends on the last clip.
This was frustrating and caused more time to work on finishing the production. For this to not happen in my classroom, I would make sure my students would insert enough clips for their production before recording. The clips can always be adjusted or deleted, but trying to record the story in the middle is difficult.
Instead of having my students write in a journal about their school year, I would have them summarize it and create a digital story to share. Where were they at the beginning of the year to now.  I would have them explain what areas were difficult for them, if they transferred during the school year, any important events happen and how the people in their life helped them be successful. They would be able to take their digital story home and share it with their family members.

Digital Story Production - The Adventurous Ski Day

I am currently taking a course on digital stories. With the information from this course, I will understand how to create a digital story and integrate this with my reading lessons. I plan on having my students create digital stories on their school experiences and what goal they would like to achieve as they get older.

  In this course I have created story maps, scripts, story tables and productions through iMovie. The stages can be found below. Click on the links to see the different stages. Some links will open in evernote the productions will open in youtube.

The Final Production - The Adventurous Ski Day

Click here to view it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ghWLximW6E&feature=youtu.be

The Script - The Adventurous Ski Day

The Adventurous Ski Day

            On a nice sunny Saturday I decided to drive 45 minutes to our ski resort in Girdwood. The drive was nice until ten minutes from the resort. The weather turned and started pouring rain. The roads were very icy and hard to see. I thought, “this might not be a good ski day with this weather. I hope it’s different at the resort.” I continued to drive and as I turned down the street towards the resorts, the roads started to dry up and become less icy.

            I arrived at the ski resort and parked the car. As I looked out to the mountain, fluffy snowflakes were hitting my windshield. I was so relieved. It was perfect skiing weather. I knew there was a lot of powder on the top of the mountain waiting to be skied on. I put on my light goggles for whiteout conditions, took my boots and skis out of the car and geared up for an incredible day of skiing.

            I took the chair lift up to the top of the mountain and skied all morning. It was the best powder I have ever skied in. Every turn was magical as I floated on top of the powder down the hill. I could feel my quad muscles burn every turn I took in this incredible powder. The afternoon I could barely move my legs from working so hard. I decided I needed a break and stopped for lunch. I ran into friends during lunch and decided to ski a few runs with them.

            Skiing in powder and with friends was heavenly, until the second run. The weather started to turn. It started to snow harder than before and the wind started to pick up. My friends bailed and decided to ski the lower part of the mountain with good visibility.

            I thought, “it’s not too bad, I’ll do one more run and then head to the bottom.” What a horrible idea this was. Why didn’t I listen to my instincts? I should have gone down and skied with my friends on the lower part of the mountain.

            I took the chair lift up to the top and as soon as I reached the top of the mountain the weather conditions worsened. It was a complete whiteout, snowing extremely hard and not being able to see 2 feet in front. I couldn’t take the chair lift down, so I figured I might as well stay positive and pick a slope that I knew really well to get down the mountain.

            I started down the mountain and stayed close to the high traverse. I knew if I could see the poles on the traverse, I wouldn’t go off into a gully or a cliff.  I started down the mountain, made some turns hit a few moguls that I didn’t see coming and some air. I made some more turns, looked for the poles and skied blind half way down the mountain.

            I finally reached the lower part and had great visibility. I skied the rest of the way being thankful I made it down safely. The visibility was fine and I didn’t want to quit skiing. I thought I could stay on the lower mountain and ski a few more runs. As I turned up the hill, I saw the clouds moving farther down the mountain. I knew the lower mountain would soon be covered in clouds and make it hard to see. I decided to finally listen to my instincts and stop for the day.

            I arrived at my car, took my gear off and drove home safe and sound. The roads home were completely dry and I had a nice bubble of safety. I couldn’t have asked for a better ending to my adventurous ski day.

The Story Table - The Adventurous Ski Day
Click here to view it: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s225/sh/f4ccdc47-ac13-4719-a572-bcf00c22de65/91f20e35e57b795c8fae72d91eb1cde3


The Story Map - The Adventurous Ski Day can be found below the reflection.



Reflection:


I learned so much about creating stories through this project. When I first started this project I wanted a very exciting story. I wrote many stories, but never found one that would catch the audience.

It happened to be a recent experience and adventure that I ended up writing about. When I started my production, I realized I new the program name for iMovie, but I had no idea how to create a story, upload photos or voice record to produce a story in iMovie. I quickly watched a lot of tutorials from youtube. After I felt I  understood how to produce my story, I started creating it. During my production I kept adding more pictures to my story. When I created my story table, I was imagining how the story would move. I was very wrong in thinking I had enough photos.

The next story I create, I will over judge when to insert photos into the production. It is a lot easier deleting then finding and uploading new photos.

With students it is important to plan a lot of time working on their first stories. It will take time for my students to find their photos and understand how iMovie works. It will also take time with voice recording and timing everything perfectly.

I am very pleased with my first digital story. After I was finished producing my story I had my whole family watch it for their reaction. Surprisingly I had them laughing at some parts of the story. I hope other readers find the story enjoyable.

The Adventurous Ski Day Story Map