Continuing Discussion on Digital Storybooks: The Elements

               Thursday in class we reviewed the elements of a digital story. After reviewing them in class I remember using them while creating my digital story in 201. I had forgotten about them and I am glad we reviewed them before I created my digital story for this class.

                In class it was mentioned that if we were to have our students complete digital stories in our classrooms we might not have our students worry about all of the elements of the digital story. I agree that it may be difficult for elementary children, but I think that if a teacher works with them and shows them many examples of each element I think that they can do it. This is especially true for upper elementary students. The first element is point of view and I feel like that would be easy for students to understand. They just need to know that their story needs to be in the voice of a specific person. Elementary students would also be willing to tell stories about themselves more than adults. The dramatic question would be the most complex element for them to understand, but I think that they could figure it out. Children are more creative than most adults so it wouldn’t be hard for them to come up with an interesting way to tell a story. Emotional content would be easy to teach because you just need to ask the students to think about what kind of story they are telling. Is it sad, funny, exciting, or etc.? Elementary students also can work on their fluency and sound of voice when they are recording their voices. Teachers can teach this skill by having students listen to others telling a story. Have the students listen to a monotone speaker and then have them listen to someone who talks with excitement in their voice at a steady pace. Let the students decide which one they would rather listen to. Then have the students practice telling stories to one another with good voice. Economy would be something I would focus on a little bit too. I would explain that their stories should be short and to the point. Sometimes kids tend to ramble when they are telling a story, so I would do summarizing activities that works on getting to the main point of the story without all of the extra information.

I think that all of the elements of a digital story are necessary. We should teach our students how to do it correctly from the beginning because the elements are skills that they need in all aspects of their reading and writing. We as teachers need to have high expectations for our students. If we set the bar high then the students will work harder to meet it. If we set the bar low then students will not be showing their full potential. I struggled through the classes where the teachers had extremely high expectations, but when the class was over I understood why they had them because I realized that I learned a lot.