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I-imagine: Taking MY Place in the World ~ A Scrapbooking Journey PLUS Teacher’s Guide (PDF Books)

In life you have two choices. You either create a future for yourself, or adapt to a future created for you by others.- Larry Quick

I-imagine™: Taking MY Place in the World is a personal, scrapbooking journey grounded in new research showing significant gains that comes from inspiring hope, joy and action in learners. Students are guided to discover and activate their own life-goals for shining their light in the world for good – living in the truth that their lives and talents matter to the world. A finale multimedia, vision video culminates a well-crafted, docudrama narrative storytelling AS IF their future life is NOW.

I-imagine’s Student Scrapbook (60 Pages) and Teacher’s Guide (140 pages) are bundled as a complete do-your-own vision videos curriculum package. Workshops, Camps, Webinars and Artist-in-Residence Programs also available. Contact Bernajean@DigiTales.us  or visit I-Imagine’s wiki for training information.

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Digitales: The Art of Digital Storytelling

This enchanted book by Bernajean Porter shares the art and possibilities of telling digital stories. Digital storytelling takes the ancient art of oral storytelling and engages a palette of technical tools to weave personal tales using images, graphics, music and sound mixed together with the author’s own story voice into a three to five minute movie.

While there are many technical books on hardware and software as well as traditional storytelling books, there are few books like DigiTales written to blend the power of both together. It is meant to help beginning digital storytellers select and use digital media as well as provide ideas and resources for experienced technology users to enable them to take first steps in storytelling. The following chapter titles give an overview of the book’s content:

  • And That Reminds Me of A Story That Needs to Be Told
  • Enchanting Stories with Digital Tools
  • Storying Around Builds 21st Century Skills
  • Conjuring Up Story Ideas
  • Stepping Through Making a Digital Story
  • Poof! Creating a DigiTales Toolkit
  • Entering The Technical World of Digital Media
  • Extra! Extra! Resources for Digital Storytellers
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Evaluating Digital Products: Resource and Training Materials for Using Student Scoring Guides

Announcing NEW groundbreaking, evaluation tools and processes called Student Scoring Guides now available to help measure the quality of student technology products as well as reveal patterns of school-wide system successes / challenges in using technology for student achievement. Are you using Six Trait Scoring methods to guide quality student work? Have you had experience in collecting student writing samples to assess success of effective writing instruction and learning? Then these tools are your NEXT step – assessing student computer created products! Teachers and students are welcome to access the Student Scoring Guides for their own personal use.

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Digital Media in the Classroom: The Art of Digital Storytelling

This is an ebook online at TechLearning.com based on Judy Salpeter’s article. You have to register but if you are looking for a great resource with many examples including references to some Bernajean’s work, this is the place.

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The Art of Digital StoryTelling: Becoming 21st Century StoryKeeper by Bernajean Porter. The Creative Teacher (Tech4Learning.com)

Gather round those roaring campfires, picnic tables, or even a fondue pot, because the ancient art of storytelling is being revived into an emerging communication mode called digital storytelling. Telling stories together about things that really matter has an extraordinary effect on people. Digital media and digital distribution to the world community is reshaping the power of oral storytelling, enabling us to unfold a highly sensory experience that dances a narrative voice with images, sound, and music into illuminated understandings. What an experience to incorporate digital storytelling into your classroom and guide a new generation into becoming 21st- Century StoryKeepers, knowing their personal narratives will endure for others long after the fires die down! Read how digital storytelling differs from digital stories along with a teacher’s example for getting her students to move past the literal and provide a deeply personal story.

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Digital Storytelling Across the Curriculum (Creative Teacher)

In an age of mathematical, logical, and scientific thinking, storytelling is often considered appropriate only for language arts projects for young learners. However, in today’s information-loaded world, storytelling is being rediscovered as an effective tool for helping us make sense of this data barrage. According to the brain research explored by Roger Shanks, storytelling provides a memory structure and depth of context that engages learners in a sense-making of facts. The digital storytelling process helps us transform isolated facts into illuminated, enduring understandings. By “living in the story,” we make information come emotionally alive. By exploring “lessons learned,” we go beyond telling about content to find its deeper meaning.

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Digital Storytelling Interview with Bernajean

Q: What do you love about digital storytelling?

A: I am deeply committed to the art of digital storytelling—not as the latest technical fad but as a way of nourishing our inner lives while also deeply connecting with others. At the end of the day who we are as a people are the stories we tell about our lives, values and experiences. The collection of these stories actually creates a field of influence (storyfields) for others. The magical power of releasing our own story into local and global communities is its ability to create understandings, build positive relationships, and leverage shared values between people of different communities or cultures. Our world could use a LOT more of that!

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Beyond Words: The Craftsmanship of Digital Products

Printed text has lost its monopoly to multimedia – are you and your students ready with these emerging communication skills? This ISTE article provides an overview of designing communication for impact using more than text. For students to be successful communicators in the 21st Century, they need to be sophisticated in expressing ideas with multiple communication modes, not just the written word.

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Raising the Bar on Student Performance and Achievement: Evaluating Digital Products

While this article is not directly about digital storytelling, it does provide an overview of closely related topic – how do you assess a quality digital product – how can students be guided to develop exemplar communication – and how might the scoring guide tools let schools know that technology is making a difference?

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The Art of Digital Storytelling by Hall Davidson and Bernajean Porter

Hall Davidson, the director of Discovery Educator Network, talks with Bernajean Porter about the essence of what digital storytelling is and how it can be used in the classroom. This article reflects on the role of resources like United Streaming to support students in practicing basic communication skills as well as demonstrating higher-order thinking as they move from data to enduring understandings through digital storytellling elements.

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Telling Tales with Technology by Judy Salpeter

Judy interviewed a number of other educators including Bernajean to create this great overview of digital storytelling. She incorporated a number of Bernajean’s ideas and work into her article that introduces the world of digital storytelling with educators. You have to register but it is a great resource for first steps into digital storytelling.

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Where’s The Beef: Adding Rigor to Student Digital Products

Urgent! Human beings needed with effective communication skills in order to translate inert, raw information into valuable knowledge useful and beneficial to others. No paper allowed! For students to be effective communicators in the 21st century, sophisticated skills in expressing ideas with multiple communication technologies will be needed. While every media has its own grammar and fluency, effective communication skills start with an author’s capacity to develop content that is worthy of sharing first! In order to score student digital products, it is essential that we begin to peer past the technology glitz and begin asking questions about rigor.

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Digital Storytelling in Second Life: Building Participatory 3D StoryWorlds in VirtualWorlds

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