Chapter 1:  Once upon a time there lived a world full of people choosing to be heroes instead of victims in telling the story of their lives.

Although there were many “revelations” that I felt strongly toward relating to digital storytelling in education, the one that left the largest impact on me was revelation number 12.  In this revelation Ohler states, “Students need to become heroes of their own learning stories as well as of the stories they tell with their own lives.” (Ohler, Kindle version)

I strongly agree with this statement and believe that helping students understand they are in control of creating the story of their future will empower them to not allow themselves to feel victimized by the world. This statement takes me back to my classroom teaching experience in a Title I school in West Sacramento.  Nobody could argue that my students grew up surrounded by hardship that most of their teachers couldn’t even imagine.  At the time I felt I was making a difference by understanding and empathizing with their situations while still having high expectations for learning.  After thinking about this revelation, I wonder if I was enabling this feeling of victimization to grow and become an excuse for any venture that didn’t prove to be successful.

Looking back, this would have been a perfect opportunity to allow them instead to the use available technology to tell the digital story of the future they desired and the steps they needed to take to achieve this life.  Realizing the cause and effect relationship of their choices to the future may have provided the needed motivation for students to strive for greater achievement in school.