Digital Storytelling

In this week's module, we learned how to engage students in creative projects such as digital storytelling, storymapping, and 3D printing. I chose to create a digital story that presents content to my first-grade students; however, I believe that upper elementary educators could facilitate projects in which students use Adobe Creative Express (formerly Adobe Spark) to create their own digital stories. 

I would use my digital story, "History with Tommy G.: Maggie Lena Walker," in a first-grade unit on Maggie L. Walker, one of the influential people included in the first-grade history and social studies standards of learning. On the first day of the unit, I would introduce Maggie Walker to the students using my Pear Deck slides. Then on the second day, I would show my digital story to "hammer home" her contributions. I think my students would be interested to see my 9-year-old son trying to understand why Maggie Walker is important to Virginia history. After we watch the video, I would divide students into partners or small groups and ask them to discuss two things they learned from the video and one question that they have. Then I would give them a choice for sharing their observations - either recording a video to Flipgrid or writing in their journal. 

I had so much fun making this digital story and look forward to using digital storytelling in my future classroom.