Dreaming about Digital Storytelling...

If I could get my 5^th 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. 5^th 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.