Digital Storytelling

 Update: After some debate, the kids are working on a Star Wars robot trailer.  Everyone has a different job.  One teen is sketching.  (I tried to sketch d-o below.)  Another teen is digitalizing the sketches.  The other kids are working on the story-board.  Once we finish, I’ll post our efforts. Right now, I’m learning more than I really wanted to know about different Star Wars droids, battle droids, ranks, and robots.  I’m playing with Apple’s Sketchbook.  We’ll see.

Yesterday, the kids started a unit on Digital Storytelling.  There are loads of sites.  This guide has step by step instructions.  Don’t be deterred by the fact it’s published by a substance abuse service.  I explained to the teens in my Co-op class, that telling your story in groups, such as AA or NA, is part of the process to maintain sobriety. (BTW, I do not know a great deal about AA or NA, except from a tiny amount of field experience in a graduate class.). Here is the Google Doc we created in class, yesterday, with ideas.  The current Composition Co-op class has highly creative students.  We reviewed student videos, film trailers, etc for ideas.  One student draws.  She shared a pencil sketch of Jesus, The Good Shepherd.  We encouraged her to use her sketch to create a video.  She might use a sheepfold model (from The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd) to help illustrate the story.  She could retell the story or just read it from the Bible.  The kids were pretty engaged.  Two teens are creating trailers for VBS.  One aspect of teaching Co-op is the fact we can all bring our faith to bear in our instruction. I’m feeling blessed.