Empowering Students through Digital Storytelling

Storytelling is one of the oldest and most effective instructional methods used among cultures around the world.  Ask anyone to share a story from their childhood and I'm confident they could recall a vivid snapshot of the moment.

In today's tech tip, I wanted to share some practical examples from our MASH learning community of how storytelling can empower students and enhance their learning. 

Storytelling with maps using using Google Tour Builder

All stories have a setting; a geographical backdrop. Google Tour Builder is a free "web-based storytelling tool which lets you easily create and explore stories and places around the world."

Imagine having your students "create a tour of any subject of their choosing, zooming in to show the places where events took place, and easily integrating the story’s text, photos and videos." You can have learners navigate to each location in the storyline and help "immerse them in the relevant places through Google Earth’s imagery and the custom content you provide" (Google Tour Builder Site). 

This tool can be used in many disciplines.  At our most recent MASH Technology Integration Committee after school PD session about Empowered Learners, our FCS department discovered how Google Tour Builder supports their Italian Cuisine Unit instructional objectives.  I'm exited to see what they come up with! Lissy Weirich, our experienced German teacher, continues to innovate  

instructional methods. See her summary below of why and how she used Google Tour Builder to help her learners reach the specific learning goals. 

Guten Tag!  I’d like to share a quick but effective synthesis or summary activity that Joe recommended, a very easy program to use Tourbuilder lets students combine a Google Earth map with photos and or videos, a choice of icons for pins, and text.
My Level II students are currently learning about prepositions of location as well as various geographical places, such as river, sea, forest, lake, city, and so forth.  They are also in the process of reviewing the present perfect tense.  Thus, with the addition of transition words, students combined both concepts with a focus on correct word order.  To model, I created a tour through Germany using eight familiar geographical locations, telling where I had been and what I had done there on my itinerary.  After walking students through my model, they researched a country of their choice other than Germany (to apply to a new situation), selected five appropriate sites with photos and provided captions. They shared them with me in GoogleDocs and students had to read at least three of them and comment on one.
This program worked well in a world language class.  They liked having a variety of choices in the project and liked seeing the real world view of the location on the map. I also can see uses for it in history, foreign foods, language arts, and more. The only drawback was not being able to use the umlauts for the vowels, as there was no way to switch to a German keyboard and cutting and pasting them was too tedious.

Lissy's Google Tour of Germany

I am inspired by Lissy's desire to try new instructional approaches with her group of students.  I also admire how she allows student choice with their country selections, and an authentic way for learners to express their voice.  This digital storytelling format allowed Frau's students to demonstrate their learning in an unconventional way. Check out Lissy's example here.  I love that she modeled the activity for her students. Not only does this allow the teacher to get an understanding of the tool, but it also shows students what an exceptional product would look like.  She also worked on this in advance of the unit and found time here and there.  I respect her time management and willingness to try something new. See a student generated tour.  As part of their assignment, students also provided constructive feedback to their peers.  One student wrote: 

I liked how you had multiple pictures for each place. The pictures were all great and your sentences weren't just simple, you tried to make them harder for you. I learned many things from your tour. Overall, great job! 

Thank you Lissy for sharing your digital storytelling lesson along with rationale and feedback with us.  #ItTakesATeacher! For more information about Google Tour Builder, visit their how to page.

Storytelling using WeVideo

Our students have access to WeVideo.  I gave students an opportunity this fall to become storytellers of one of their assigned countries.  They were asked to create a digital story that dynamically reveals their selected culture.  Possible themes: National Geographic Episode Segment, News Special, History Channel Segment, Food Network Episode Segment, Netflix Series Episode Segment, Digital Narrative, Digital Children’s Story, Suspense Novel Chapter w/ sound effects, Musical, Claymation, etc.  I created some criteria and rubrics for content, as well as the product. Contact me if you would like me to share those files. The digital stories were awesome.  Students added their videos to their Google Site culture tabs. After I previewed each one, I then added the videos to a YouTube playlist to support their class activity. 

Here are some examples:

Juli F., 10th Grade 

Morgan B., 10th Grade

I love how Juli and Morgan used WeVideo sound effects to make their stories come to life! 

There are many more examples of how MASH staff is using digital storytelling techniques. I look forward to meeting with our 9th grade ELA & Social Studies teachers about their Cornerstone tasks who had their students preserve actual stories from family and community members. 

Here are some ways that we can incorporate story telling throughout our instruction. 

Feel free to share below how you're incorporating story telling.