Digital Stories and Ebooks

One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about the information I’m learning in our media classes is how much we are being taught about technology. This week’s reading and exploration on digital storytelling and ebooks has been very interesting. I have always love to see sideshows of pictures put together with music; it evokes more emotion and “understanding” than just looking at pictures in a textbook. Fortunately, there are several ways to incorporate this activity in the classroom.

According to Bernard Robin of the University of Houston, “Topics used in digital story telling range from personal takes to the recounting of historical events, from explaining life in one’s own community to the search for life in other corners of the universe, and literally, everything in between.” There are benefits for both teachers and students from the use of digital story telling. For teachers, it can be used as a lesson hook, used to integrate multimedia into curriculum, make difficult content more understandable because it allows coverage of multiple learning styles, and facilitates classroom discussion. For students, it helps improve multiple skills: research, writing, organization, technology, presentation, interview, problem solving, and assessment skills.

I am currently teaching about the Holocaust in my World Literature class. We’ve had background discussions and read different short stories; Throughout, the students had a lot of questions: “you mean, they really did this to them?” or “Were they really that starved, etc.” I needed a way to get them to see the reality of this horrible event, so I went to the Internet and started searching Teacher Tube. I was able to find several examples of digital storytelling and actually decided on one that was created by a 9^th grade student. My students were in awe of the images they were seeing on the screen, and their questions and discussion from that point on demonstrated that, finally, a light bulb had been flipped on. Not only did they finally “get” it, but they also had images that would remain with them throughout our unit. This is a great use for digital stories in the classroom; for the teacher, it can be used to enhance instruction while students can create their own stories to show their understanding.”

Ebooks seem to be the wave of the future. There are actually schools that are considering using ebooks instead of text books. I am not completely sure how I feel about the use of ebooks as a replacement for the traditional book. I am English teacher; I love to read, and to me books are a precious thing. I love the feeling of getting a new book, dog-earing the pages, and getting a sense of accomplishment when I finish something that looked so daunting in the beginning. With Kindles, computers, and other ebook readers, all of that is lost. It will always just be words on a screen, and to me, that loses some of the lure and attraction of books. However, I can see their benefit. For a lot of students, books are a turn-off, but give them a piece of technology and have them read, in their minds, it’s different and it is intriguing. A lot of our students need that. At our school, the only thing that could possibly be considered as an ebook would be an online version of Newsweek and Education Leadership. Unfortunately, neither of these is ever accessed. Our media specialist doesn’t even know how to do so. When I asked her opinion on the use of Ebooks in the media center, she said that “it would be a great thing, but I don’t ever see it happening. We have very limited funds and moving in that direction would suck up all the money, not only in purchases, but in repairs, etc.”

Fortunately, there are ways to access free ebooks. Project Gutenberg is a site that had over 30,000 free ebooks. Most of the books available are books whose copyright has expired in the United States. One thing I found interesting is the difference between books that are “free of charge” and book “freedom”. Free of charge means that there is no charge for the book, but you are bound by very strict copyright laws. Book freedom means that the user can do however he or she pleases with the book. A lot of people don’t realize there is a difference.

I think ebooks will definitely find their place in media centers and in the classroom. With the new use of SmartBoards, ebooks can be used in whole class discussion and interactive lessons. One example I really like was to use books from International Children’s Digital Library to work with learning languages. Students can look at children’s books and work at translating, finishing, or illustrating these selected books.