I would guess that I am one of many adults--and children--who love to hear a story read aloud. Digital storytelling is a brand new concept to me, but one that I would love to learn more about, from the creator and observer standpoint. As we continue to move more and more each day into a standards-based curriculum, the technological education of our students becomes more and more imperative. The CRCT continues to be the primary standardized--multiple choice--test used to determine the competency of our students, but how much longer will that be in effect? There are not many classroom teachers today who rely soley on the pencil/paper objective assessments to evaluate a child's competency and progress. The tests that we knew as students are now being replaced by performance tasks. With the right equipment and some basic technology training, today's students could easily complete a variety of performance tasks through the digital storytelling medium.
In fourth grade we study Native Americans, European explorers, the first American settlements and colonies, and the Revolutionary War, and that's just in social studies. Why not have groups of students create digital stories demonstrating knowledge of each of the six Native American tribes that we study? How about a story detailing one of each of the six European explorers that we study? Divide your class into groups and have them create the storyline, find images, and tell the story of our country's beautiful, and sometimes tumultuous, history. Just think about how that would engage a child as creator and listener.
I had no idea what an e-book was until I took MEDT 7465 (Resources for Children and Young Adults) at West Georgia. Dr. Putney had us review several e-books on Tumnblebooks, and I was amazed at the quality and variety of these e-books. I love to hear a story read aloud, so I have always tried to read aloud to my class each day, to model fluency and engage my students in the written word. My school district has just received a trial membership to Tumblebooks, and I plan to explore this medium of storytelling much more completely. I would think that many educators have typically thought of e-books as resources for the lower, primary grades, because they are orally narated books. We need to push our students to read grade-level materials on their own, right? Why? Why not have them listen to an e-book--on grade level or above--and then complete a variety of standards-based activities? Why not have them listen to a story read aloud to help them improve their own reading fluency? Tumblebooks even provides teacher lesson plans for many of their e-books. Take a look at an e-book or two, and try something new in your literacy workstations next week.
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I owe you a huge thank you Lisa! I had never heard of Tumblebooks until I read your blog. Now that I have signed up for a free trial I am afraid that I am addicted. I have always been a big fan of hearing the written word read aloud whether by a parent, teacher, student and even through a book on tape or CD. Additionally, I am very familiar with eBooks through the high school I currently work. The biggest complaint that I have with the eBooks we subscribe to at my high school are that the vast majority of them are far to advanced for the MID (Mild Intellectual Students) that I teach. Although the media specialists do a great job of acquiring high interest, low reading level books for my students, I have always commented that I would like them in a book on tape or CD format. Often these books are not available in that format or they are to expensive to justify for such a small population segment of my high school. Being introduced to Tumblebooks by you may have solved this issue. Although it seems to be subscribed to more at the lower grade levels, many of the books listed through the Tumblebooks database are currently high demand materials at the middle and high school level. I had already built my case for a subscription of this nature with my media specialists, but I just had not found the resource that meets my needs until I read your blog. Thank you again!
ReplyDeleteI have heard of Tumblebooks but never really looked into it. My school had a free trial last year but I was so busy with other things that I never paid any attention to it. After reading your blog and seeing Rob's comment, I am definitely going to give it a try.
ReplyDeleteI have not really used ebooks in my class as of yet. I became aware of them when I started the program here at WestGA but again too busy to really look into to using it in my class. My school does have quite a bit of "listening center" materials. Our new science textbooks are available for students in narrative on CD. We also have tons of cassettes and DVD's to use in listening centers. I do want to explore ebooks in more detail so I will be versed when I have my own media center. It seems like it would be easier to use ebooks than traditional books on tape because more than one student can use it at a time.