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Katie Gorman

LITR 630

June 27, 2017

Mary Morgan
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TPACK Model

My knowledge and confidence of TPACK continues to grow throughout

this course. I have had many interactions with technology through this process

where I have wanted to throw it out the door. This is coming from someone who

uses technology every single day. Oh how I felt tech savvy prior to this class, I

was awaken very quickly to what I didnt know. For this digital story I was finally

comfortable. I had a solid foundation of the standards I wanted to reach, a

small idea of how to use the Photo Story, and a gigantic belief that if anything

this would be the type of instruction my students would hang on to. As I am

building my own understanding of web 2.0, I feel the urge to throw the

computer out the door lessen as the days go by. This is a very good thing, not

just for me or even my computer, but for the chance my students now have to

becoming technologically literate.

International Literacy Association

The lesson is aligned with many literacy standards, including the

International Literacy Association (ILA) Standards. Digital storytelling is one of the

most up and coming components of engaging students with their writing. The

ability to keep up with new ways to hold student engagement is one of my

strong suits. The use of a digital story will my students with the power to enhance

their stories (ILA 1.2). My implementation of digital stories will be tied with a
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writing, reading, speaking standard. I will address the standards for this particular

digital story later in this paper. (ILA 2.2).

International Society for Technology in Education

In addition to the ILA standards, this lesson meets ISTE standards 1b. The

standard address students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge,

and develop innovative products and processes using technology. This entails

students creating original works as a means of personal or group expression. The

purpose of the digital story is to encourage students to develop a voice in their

work. I see far too many generic papers. The general education teachers

struggle to keep up with my students writing portfolio, then weeks before the

last day of school I am notified. This is very ineffective and I promised myself I

would be proactive in writing for my students sake. The digital storytelling is an

essential comment of my new promise. I see this as a fun way for my students to

engage with their writing.

Kentucky Teacher Standards

The digital story has been my favorite use of technology so far. The entire

lesson process was entertaining and engaging. As I built my own digital story I

reflected on how this could be implemented into my own resource classroom.

My students would love the voice over effect. To build this lesson, I used multiple

sources of technology like Photo Story 3 for Windows (KTS 6.1). Uploading a

video to Youtube was actually easier than I imaged. When planning for next
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year I will have students use this as a publishing tool. They will have the

opportunity to use the internet as a resource as well as someplace to publish

their own work (KTS 6.3).

Common Core

Aside from student engagement and teacher interest, digital storytelling

has the potential to meeting many common core standards. One of the

beginning assignments students will be required to complete before crafting

their digital story is reading informational text (R.I.1.10). The area will be free for

students to pick, but they will be asked to provide illustrations and details to

describe key ideas (R.I.1.7 &SL.1.5). After they have collected a sufficient

amount of information they will outline their information on a story map and

storyboard (W.1.2). Their goal will be to provide enough information that viewers

will have their questions answered throughout the video (SL.1.2).

Connection to the Readings

The teacher attitude toward technology I once had has begun to

change. I love technology, I use it every day, well that is to project my

document or play a video that connect to my lesson, or simply provide a brain

break for the classroom. Technology has always been incorporated into my

lessons, but boy how illiterate I was with everything outside those areas.

Teachers who are less experiences with multimedia technologywhom writer

Marc Prensky (2001) calls digital immigrants need not be intimated (Ohler, J.
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2006). That was me, a digital immigrant, completely afraid to encourage

student exploration of technology. How could they explore something I didnt

know half about? It was this attitude of letting go, but only just a teeny tiny bit.

This attitude has held my students back, it was this attitude that caused

disconnect between my students and my lessons. Teacher familiarity,

confidence, and skill in choosing software and integrating technology into the

curriculum are dependent on teacher training and time for self-directed

exploration and learning. Due to the relative newness of computer technology,

many teachers have not received adequate training to select appropriate

technologies and lack of support to use them. (Robin, B. 2008). I can finally say

this does not apply to me anymore. I realize I have months more of self-directed

exploration ahead, but through this course I am slowly building my confidence

and skills. I am inspired to implement web 2.0 technology into my classroom and

although I will be the only one in my school trained, I will bring leadership and

teacher urgency back this year. As Mary Ann Wolf, stated, Strong leadership is

needed to encourage the correct use of technology, provide support

throughout, and systemically integrate the use of technology for instruction.

Integrating technology is much, much more than putting a piece of software

into a classroom (Robin, B 2008).

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Works Cited

Ohler, J. (2005). The world of digital storytelling. Educational Leadership, 63(4),

44-47.

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-2.

Robin, B. (2008). The effective uses of digital storytelling as a teaching and

learning tool. Handbook of research on teaching literacy through the

communicative and visual arts (Vol.2). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates.