If I could get my 5th
grade students to master the art of digital storytelling, the possibilities for
social studies projects would be endless. I taught a mixture of reading and
social studies, and I loved how excited many of the kids were to learn history.
5th grade is often the first time they are introduced to interesting
historical concepts, ideas, and people. They have not been classically conditioned
to automatically think about taking a nap as soon as the teacher asks them to open
their social studies textbook. It is a mistake to think that history should be
taught merely by reading from a book. Teachers should strive to make history
come alive for students—after all, it is the real-life story of us!
One idea a teacher could use to
make history come alive is by having the class create virtual autobiographies
for a historical figure the class is studying. For example, if a class was
completing a unit on the American Revolution, each student can make an autobiography
for all the major-players. If that person was alive today, telling you about
their life, what would they say? What photos would they use to capture a particular
element of their life? Students would use a tool such as Animoto or Voicethread to create presentations with
audio content. Their voice becomes the ‘voice’ of their assigned figure. This project
is similar to the ‘living museum’ project popular among elementary students,
but it is incorporating technology students can use to portray their figure
without limitations.
