Stupeflix--good presentation tool

    I am really happy to share my spring break vacation experience with everyone by the storytelling way. Thus, I can image how happy my students will be if they have chances to show their stories by this clear and cool way. In this way, Stupeflix can be a useful tool for students to show their periods presentations. Traditional presentations are more likely depending on memorize drafts and recite in front of peers. This is way much weaker than presentation of combination of pictures, words and even music. For me, I like this kind of romantic presentation way. And for boys who probably won't give a care about romantic, digital presentation is a nice chance to use their computer skills. Maybe girls will consult male friends.

Bookr, a nice tool

        My winter vacation

        I used Bookr to display my winter vacation in New York. Even though I met lots of problems when I tries to create the digital brochure, I still find bookr is very useful tool for my future teaching.

        I will let my students to use bookr to create stories. I will group them and assign them different tasks to finish assignments. I prefer to let students tell stories about Greek Methodology. Because tons of English words are originated from Greek Gods' names or Gods' exclusive abilities. During the preparation time, I hope students can learn stories behind words from their materials. I hope a storytelling assignment like this can lead students to learn something new both in online tools and English knowledge. And via the activity, they can learn how work together and present their productions to others.

Digital Storytelling creates creation

Audience at the Los Lupeños de San José exhibit., a photo by San José Library on Flickr.

        According to 7 things you should know about Digital Storytelling, "Digital Storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically  with a strong emotional component". Digital Storytelling allows various resources as its materials. Thus, storytellers can be as creative as they can to design stories. Some curriculum experts even believe that digital storytelling can be applied to nearly any subjects because of their virtually limitless in resources requirement. And digital storytelling can also be complicated as sophisticated one. As I quoted from 7 things you should know about Digital Storytelling, "sophisticated digital stories can be interactive movies that include highly produced audio and visual effects, but a set of slides with corresponding narration or music constitutes a basic digital story". From this point of view, proficient level of digital storytelling requires high level of students' various abilities.
        Since digital storytelling is not the simple traditional oral story delivering, I can use it to improve several learning abilities of my future students. A well-formed digital storytelling needs a script. Students have to think what methods they will employ to support their stories in digital way. Which music is best? What kind of images to use? Is video better or animation? Students have to go through all trivial elements to design a practical plan. It is very helpful to improve students' organization ability. For the story telling part, students' are forced to choose a topic of their stories. Not like old days that teachers prepare everything, this time, students should choose appropriate stories which can be conveyed to particular audience, with electronic elements, in the time available. Thus, digital storytelling let students to express themselves not only with their own words but also with their own creation.