Outcomes tbd

When composing posts for my blog, I uphold the belief that it is "crucially important to be able to express oneself in writing using words" (Richardson, 2010, p. 153). Yet in my previous post I told a story with audio and digital photographs. The written word was secondary, even tertiary, to the story of my daughters' foray into sisterhood. In fact, if you ignore the captions, there were no words in the VoiceThread until my friend Bruce added some written commentary and I responded. (Thanks, Bruce!) Was the VoiceThread expressive? I would argue yes. Was it emotive? Judging by the feedback I received from my Mum and Dad and a couple of friends, who would not (could not?) comment directly on the VoiceThread - yes, it was. The digital story is an entirely separate entity from the written content of the post. The written segment sets up the expectation that a digital story is going to be told, but the digital story does not need the written introduction to exist - it tells its own tale.

So. . .

Is it equally important to be able to express oneself in a medium other than writing using words?

In British Columbia, the Ministry of Education Language Arts Integrated Resource Package (IRP) hints at a form of expression that differs from the written word in Grade Four. One of the prescribed learning outcomes states, "It is expected that students will create meaningful visual representations that communicate personal response, information, and ideas relevant to the topic" (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2006, p. 70). However, a few pages later the features and conventions expected in said visual representations are listed, containing key words and phrases like: simple and compound sentences, paragraphs, noun-pronoun agreement, tenses, capitalization, commas, spelling, legible writing, spacing words (p. 72). That sounds like writing to me.

Richardson (2010) argues, one of the big shifts we, as educators, have to make in how we teach content and curriculum is that "writing is no longer limited to text" (p. 153). If this is true, then the BC Ministry of Education appears to be holding us back. Fortunately, by Grade Eight the expected features are far more open-ended: "It is expected that students will use and experiment with elements of form in writing and representing [emphasis added], appropriate to purpose and audience, to enhance meaning and artistry, including
– organization of ideas and information
– text features and visual/artistic devices" [emphasis added] (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2007, p. 53).

Teachers cannot wait for the Ministry to catch curriculum up with Web 2.0 developments. Our Kindergarten students should be publishing their own VoiceThreads! I just might have to write up my own learning outcomes for digital story telling. . .

References
British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2007). English Language Arts 8 to 12: Integrated Resource Package 2007. Retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/english_language_arts/2007ela_812.pdf
British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2006). English Language Arts Kindergarten to Grade 7: Integrated Resource Package 2006. Retrieved from http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/pdfs/english_language_arts/2006ela_k7.pdf
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

A little bird told me about VoiceThread

I played around with the digital story telling tool, Little Bird Tales last spring and shared it with the Grade One teacher in my school. With the support of the IT teacher, these two colleagues then collaborated in the true spirit of innovative education to create a classful of student narrated tales. Although the end products were enjoyed by parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and peers, my colleagues' experience was plagued with disappearing images, voices that existed digitally on Monday yet not on Tuesday, and some basic login issues.

Four months later, I expected this tool to have either flown the coop and fallen off of digital storytelling radar, or to have molted and left its chick-like technology quirks behind. Sadly, it exists, and still in its infancy stage. Multiple login attempts left me frustrated. A password forgotten led to the creation of another account, which requested a school code, which, having been created and forgotten last school year was eventually deemed irretrievable.

Did I call it quits? Throw in the towel? Snort in frustration over the idiots at LBT mission control?

Yep.

Time slows for no woman! I have an evening in which to play with a digital story telling tool and blog about my experience before I single-parent the next three nights as my husband heads off to the provincials in Kamloops with the senior boys soccer team. (Go Titans, go!)

Two hours later. . .

I am in love, again. Jessica Levitt, Grad Student, Narcissist, falls for yet another Web 2.0 tool. I can't wait to share VoiceThread with the Grade One teacher in my school. It leaves the fledgling LBT behind in the nest.

Please, add your voice or video to the VoiceThread.