My Digital Story: Not What I Expected!

When I originally began thinking about writing a digital story a la Jason Ohler, I surmised that my herb garden's epic journey from mere classroom project to vaunted supplier of fresh foodstuffs would be excellent fodder for a tale.

Then I began a free-write (see last post) on the subject of my lovely plants, and realized that there was another, perhaps more compelling, story at hand. . . not about the plants, but about ME!

When I first took over a classroom of my own, I was both scared to death of implementing lab assignments and, simultaneously, convinced that it was absolutely essential that I do so. Upon re-reading Ch. 5 of the tech text book, I saw that those first love/hate lab experiences fit the mold of Joseph Campbell's "hero story" surprisingly well. And oila: my Ohler/Cambell story map hybrid was born.

My digital story itself took a little longer to finish, but it's not a bad finished product if I do say so myself! I would've liked to make the narration a little louder, but playing with the microphone and re-recording did nothing to increase the volume, so I left it loud enough to be heard on Maximum volume in a quiet room. Another thing? I would've liked to have had more specific pictures, not just of the plants.



If I were to have students do a project like this, I would have to approach it much like a lab, I think. Send them home with a little background information and a procedure outlining the steps and purpose of creating a digital story, model the creation of simplistic digital story in real-time, and definitely, DEFINITELY give them a rubric.