Chapter 13: My Ideal Digital Storytelling Toolbox

In this chapter, Ohler discusses the essential tools that teachers and students need in order to tell digital stories.  The following statement hit close to home for me in my attempts to create digital stories the past few weeks.

"Fancy gear and software is not important.  When it comes to effective digital storytelling, less is often more."  (Ohler, 2010, 2214 of 2900).

While creating our first video, my new laptop had an issue with the video card that would not allow me to add captions to my pictures.  In order to post my video, I dusted off my seven year old laptop which allowed me to create my video in about fifteen minutes.  I have since downloaded the updates to the driver on the new laptop which will allow me to use Window's Movie Maker, but only after I spent four very frustrating hours attempting to pinpoint the problem.

This week I realized that I only had hard copies of many of the photos I needed for my digital story.  I wasn't worried because we have a fairly new printer/scanner/copier that should be easy to use and scan and save my photos onto my laptop.  Unfortunately, some of the printer colors were running low and the printer would not allow me to scan photos until I replaced the ink cartridges.  This seemed silly because I wasn't going to be doing any printing, however it refused to let me bypass this control.  My solution was to pull out my old HP printer/scanner from the bottom shelf of the closet which worked perfectly despite being over seven years old.

This weekend I will be moving to another location and both laptops and printers will be taking the journey with me.  When it comes to hardware and software, it is more important that the tools can get the job done rather than how many complex functions are possible.  In my case, the less complicated the tool the more likely I will be to make use of it effectively.

Video 2

This video tells the story of my 2005 trip to New Zealand.  This adventure pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to grow as a person.  I had just turned 28 when I embarked on this journey and it was truly a life changing trip.

Ohler's Five Phases of Media Production

 In chapter 11, Ohler discussed the first of the five phases of his media production process.  In my prior response, I commented on the use of peer pitching to assist students with developing their story core.  My experience with this approach at our face to face session reinforced my feelings.  Receiving feedback from my classmates assisted me in determining where my transformation would be taking place in the story.

Chapter 12 continues with the remaining four phases of the media production process.  Phase II includes the steps involved in preproduction such as developing a media list and obtaining the necessary media.  This seems like a logical step in the creation of digital stories.  One of Ohler's suggestions that would be beneficial in any classroom is "Find out who the software and hardware experts are in your classroom or workshop and feel free to call on them" (Ohler, Kindle Edition 1960 of 2900).  Just tonight, I utilized the expertise of our iMET cohort through our Facebook page attempting to troubleshoot an issue I was having with captions in my video.  It is very helpful to have a network of assistance rather than having to immediately contact a teacher or professor.  

The author suggests including learning the basics of iMovie or Movie Maker in either the Prephase I or in the third phase of production.  Having spent four hours attempting to add captions to my video tonight, I would attempt to include this step as early as possible.

The remaining steps of the production process seem logical to me and would work well in creating media projects in the classroom.  Ohler stresses the importance of including proper credits as well as music, transitions and effects during the postproduction phase. 

Hiking has always been a big part of my life.  Since we were in high school, my best friend and I would spend our summers outdoors hiking in Lake Tahoe.  In my fourth year of teaching, one of the teachers at my school challenged a group of us to prepare to hike half dome by the end of the school year.  This video details our journey.

Chapter 11: Peer Pitching

 Chapter 11 begins section III on the media production process by focusing on the first two phases of story telling and preproduction.  One of the author's ideas that I feel would be useful in a classroom is the use of peer pitching.

"Peer pitching is an approach to student peer review that involves students pitching their ideas to each other as a form of critique (Theodosakis, 2001).  In my adaptation of this process, students pitch their stories to peers, using their story map as a basis" (Ohler, Kindle Edition1856 of 2900).

In my opinion, peer feedback is a great way to initiate conversation about and development of story ideas.  Using the story map provides guidelines for the students to use to assist them in giving helpful critiques.  There would need to be an appropriate amount of modeling of the process as well as an understanding of participation expectations and expectations for the critiques and recommendations.  Most teachers can remember at least one collaborative lesson that didn't turn out as planned.  I remember starting group activities where students sat and you could almost hear the crickets in the background.  In those cases, I would bring the whole class back together and provide more clarification and examples of expectations but it would be better to be proactive than reactive in general.  

Once again I will relate the idea of peer pitching to my current line of work.  If you've even been in a state government office, you are probably familiar with the 8x8 cubicle office setup where each employee has their own little "office space" within the larger room.  Our budget office is set up differently and instead has one large bullpen divided into four smaller cubicles with three feet high walls between each analyst.  The benefit of this setup is that within my unit, I can "pitch" my ideas to my coworkers easily.  I've used this strategy in the development of templates or spreadsheets.  Often I will be given an assignment where we know the information that we want displayed (the conclusion of the story) but aren't sure how to get there.  Working with others to pitch my ideas and having them assist me in modifying my vision to find the best format is incredibly helpful and gives me additional perspective on the project. 

Chapter 10: Homework tonight, please watch MTV!

"Music videos are a great place to look for inspiration in this area.  They are perhaps one of the most prevalent forms of short media know to students, lasting about as long as a digital story that teachers might assign" (Ohler, Kindle Edition, 1730 of 2900).

Chapter 10 discussed other non-traditional forms of stories and story perspectives.  The above statement suggests incorporating the visual arts into DST through the use of music videos.  One of the biggest struggles I faced in my years of teaching was keeping students engaged in the curriculum and interested in the subjects and concepts being studied.  Allowing students to use media such as video and computer software to create videos showing their understanding would have been a bridge in communicating this new generation of digital natives.  

In addition to music videos being a meaningful way to tell their stories, they could be used to across the curriculum to create  stories of mathematical concepts, social studies or science related videos.  Working for the government, I don't know how many times I've heard someone refer to the School House Rock video about how a bill becomes a law.  Imagine the impact the videos would have on students if they were the directors of the videos rather than a passive audience.  It really hit me how much the world has changed when my seventy-three year old dad started talking to me about a YouTube video he had watched earlier in the day.  As educators, we need to change our perception of learning and begin incorporating the technologies that surround us to engage and motivate the next generation of students.

Chapter 9: I could learn, if you would just tell me a story!

In Chapter 9, Ohler discusses other approaches to story mapping besides the visual portrait of a story mentioned in prior chapters. Although I liked many of the structures such as Aristotle's Story Map, and the treasure maps, I was most intrigued by Kieran Egan's Story form.

"To capitalize on children's imaginative abilities in learning situations, he recommended that teachers develop lesson plans based on the story form rather than the typical task-subtask lesson plan structure that was (and still is) in such prevalent use.  To him, there was little that was inherently meaningful to the young mind in a  logically constructed sequence of tasks" (Ohler, Kindle Edition, 1610 of 2900).

In general, I am a Type A personality who likes organization, structure, and makes daily lists of tasks for both home and use at work.  When I read this statement however, I realized the implications of this statement for both the classroom or any work environment.  I immediately thought of an incident that occurred at work yesterday.  Last Monday I returned to the Department of Corrections as a budget analyst in a new unit.  After meeting with my unit to discuss upcoming assignments, I went back to my desk to review procedures for Schedule 10s.  After twenty minutes of reading through documents I learned very little and knew I would need to refer back to the procedures if I received any questions regarding this process.  Yesterday, one of my coworkers was discussing the Schedule 10s with staff from one of our programs.  Instead of asking him what the process was, I instead asked him how our work fit into the big picture of CDCR budgets.  In other words, instead of giving me the task we will be completing I wanted to know the whole story.  In about three minutes I had a clear understanding that these are documents created by the Department of Finance to track our budget authority and that our budget should tie to these documents at all points throughout the year.  The state budget cycle does not make the most entertaining story, but even this topic can be made more relevant and memorable using the story form model.  Egan is correct in stating that individual tasks are not memorable and only when students see the purpose or how the tasks related to the larger picture will they internalize this knowledge.

Chapter 8: Using Bloom's Taxonomy in DST

"Although it was developed as a way to classify how we learn, it also works well as a system for classifying how we change.  Essentially, what Bloom developed is a hierarchy of transformation" (Ohler, Kindle Edition 1505 of 2900).

In the passage above, the author was discussing how Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive processes related to levels of transformation within characters in our stories.  In my credential program, I remember creating lesson plans around Bloom's taxonomy ensuring that students would be responsible for completing assignments that went beyond the shallow knowledge questions and allowed them to dig deeper into their understanding of the concept we were studying. 

Although I hadn't thought to apply this same system to storytelling, it makes sense that it would assist in the development of conflict.   I liked the example of B-grade action movies which have conflict and resolution however are lacking in the internal conflict that keeps a viewer interested in the story.  This  seems to be a great way to introduce the transformation of characters and stories to students.  For example, comparing a popular but somewhat shallow teen action movie to that of the Hunger Games, another popular teen movie (and book) but with greater depth.  Discussing how the Katniss evolves from the initial level of receiving the phenomena through all the steps of Bloom's taxonomy of affective transformation would help demonstrate for students how to add conflict and growth into their own stories.  A comparison could be made between the two films discussing how the audience (class) reacted to each film and why.  I believe students would be more engaged and therefore more eager to develop their own stories because these movies are current and relate to  a world they understand, versus using sample texts from random stories or textbook which may not be relevant to their lives.

Chapter 7: I Can Relate To Your Story...tell me more.

Although there were many useful techniques, tips and lessons spoken of by the author in chapter 7, my reflection focuses on the telling of personal stories which are also universal.  I chose to highlight the below passage from Ohler's book because it resonated with me and my own current struggles.  In my case, it means pulling out a copy of Eat, Pray, Love but have chosen to relate the quote instead to prior classroom experience.

 "Because of the connection, we can learn and be transformed as a story listener.  As with most things in life, if it involves us, there's a greater likelihood that we'll care about it and remember it."  (Ohler, Kindle Edition, 1,450 of 2,900).

One of my favorite books to read to students in my 3rd grade class was "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing" by Judy Blume.  It was always interesting to see the student reactions and who they cheered for, older brother Peter or unruly younger brother Fudge.  Being the younger (perfect) sibling, I always thought Peter exaggerated a bit about his frustrating younger brother.  They loved listening to this book because most students could relate to the difficulties of dealing with siblings and it was a universal topic.  We would discuss perspectives from a younger and older sibling after each chapter, opening their minds to opinions not previously considered.

Taking this idea of resonance and applying it to personal writing allows for the creation of powerful stories.   Conflict and classroom management difficulties often arise when students feel misunderstood or aren't able to clearly communicate the problems or struggles they are enduring.   Sharing their stories will help open up the lines of communication, helping them to understand their differences and connect on their similarities.

Chapter 6: Moving Beyond the Beginning, Middle, and End

In this chapter, Ohler focuses on mapping both the short and more detailed story.    He uses an example of the story "William Tell and the Young Girl Who Could Fix Computers"  and purposefully leaves out sections involving tension, transformation, and resolution to model what a story needs.  His statement sums up his thought on the story, "So far, it's a good example of a story that has a beginning, a middle, and an end and works from a functional perspective, but is not powerful, memorable, or useful."  (Ohler, Kindle Edition, 1,305 of 2,900).

It seems to me that this is a valuable method in which to introduce the rise in the story using the visual representation of a flat story map being transformed into one with transformation/resolution that will engage an audience.  Having taught 3rd grade for four years, I remember spending the year focusing on beginning, middle, and end in all writing assignments.  This system of teaching writing does often lead to incredibly dry, simple, basic stories.  

Our solution at the time was to use the hamburger model to represent including juicy details.  Each portion of the burger symbolized an essential part of their stories.  The top bun was the beginning, lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and ketchup were the juicy details that added interest , the hamburger patty was the meat where plot developed, and the bottom bun summed up the entire story.  Then I would relate it to going through a drive through and ordering a Whopper and what their reaction would be if they were missing any of those pieces of their meal.  Students always enjoyed the visual and began to relate it to their peer editing, making comments like "You need more juicy details or your audience will be disappointed and ask for a refund."  I would review my own writing with the students, asking them which pieces were missing and how we could strengthen and produce a more satisfying story.

I believe that the use of the VPS story mapping would have an even larger impact because it more clearly explains the transformation stages rather than simply categorizing all the important details as "the meat" of the story.  Having read through the first six chapters of this book, I would have enjoyed applying many of these strategies to both my primary and intermediate grade level classrooms.

Chapter 5: Does technology hinder the story development process?

When discussing the creating of story maps, the author makes the following bold statement, "Don't have students use computers to create the VPS.  They just get in the way at this point.  Just have them use paper and pencil."  (Ohler, Kindle Edition, 1181 of 2900).

My initial reaction to Ohler's comment was one of slight confusion.  We're currently enrolled in a Master's Program which revolves around educational technology,  but we're taking the use of computers out of this portion of the process.  After looking at the Visual Portrait of a Story (VPS), I do believe that having the students expand upon their story core by drawing out the path their character takes from ordinary life, through the stages of conflict and growth that lead to resolution and closure is an effective way to focus students on the story, rather than the technology.

As I read further into the chapter, I began to think of a student from my very first year of teaching.  He was a 4th grader in my 4/5 combination class and was both gifted and talented and extremely distracted and hyperactive.  Although he loved speaking in front of the class and telling his ideas, writing was very frustrating for him because he couldn't concisely articulate all the thoughts that were running through his mind.  He loved to create stories on the computer, but they often became jumbled with creative fonts, colors, and graphics and the focus was no longer on ensuring the story was complete.    The story map itself is a great visual rubric showing students where they need to strengthen their stories or what information may not impact their core ideas.  This would be an effective, inexpensive tool for teachers to use with all students and would have a great impact on students like my 4th grader, acting as a guide to express their ideas.