My Digital Story

Here is my final product from the workshop.  
During the final day my work on my digital story hit a technical hiccup and I had the choice of trying to piece it all back together or start over. I opted for starting over as now I knew what to do and could do it more quickly. What had taken a day and a half would now need to be done in less than 4 hours, and put me behind as well as not being able to share in some tandem learning with others as I was in a different place. One ear on what others were doing and both eyes on what needed to be done.

I finished. I had a good product. Some rough spots - but this was a first digital story and a first of many firsts. The viewing went well and I have a 3:40 minute/second video. It was great and it fit the parameters set by the workshop.

Because I needed to rush through some things - there were still some tweaks I needed. I also had to bring closure to my story for me. The part of the story that others don't hear and see - what the transitions and placements mean to me. So-  I opted to remix and redo - but also to reconfirm my new learning by applying it again. Back at the office the day after the workshop - no business in the afternoon because of summer hours - I began again. Not from the very beginning - but worked on crafting audio editing, and including some of the less obvious connections that are important to me that others may not even ever realize. I had to use different tools - another great application of my personalized learning - could I show evidence of learning application without the exact ingredients on which I was taught?

Guess what - I think I did it. I will now leave this story and go on to my next. It is my first story and will always need some tweaking - but it will be the baseline for my next work. It will have a short shelf life as it should and I will demonstrate my achievement by growing and applying in other products and alignments.

I will also take with me - how do we make this happen for teachers and students? Not creating a digital story - but personalized learning.

Thank you for your support.

Day Three - the Final Lap

Day 3 - Facilitators Andrea and Marianne after staying later on day 2, provided the opportunity to come early to get started. We were all in need of some work if we were going to be able to have shareable finished products by the last hour.

I was again glad for the opportunity to participate in a learning experience that put the tools in their place. The focus was on communicating an effective story - to be a storyteller. There were no photoshop handouts or tasks that everyone in the class had to go through. As stories were being worked on and the facilitators acting as coaches and critical friends found that a particular message would be more effective with a transparent photo overlay or fading of an image - photoshop was suggested and that particular element was learned and worked on. We all didn't need to learn to fade a picture or crop it - which would have produced a faded, cropped picture in all 11 stories.

The editing software was just called editing software and while it was Adobe Premiere in this case - it was only because it was dictated by what was available at the facility where we met. The learning was on the elements and questions - not the step by step - Go to File - go to Insert. I found this something truly freeing and learned more. It also gave me the feeling of accomplishment. By viewing and looking at it as my personal learning and being permitted to do so, I learned more. I felt better about the time I invested. I came out with a product that I was happy and proud of instead of a false artifact that would just sit somewhere and never thought of again.

How do we create this for our professional educators? How do we have them experience the power and richness of learning that is not direct instruction? How do we make sure our K12 students begin to have a system that really allows personalized learning? These are the questions I work on with my team in my day job. They are also the questions I am passionate about personally.

I will create more stories. Stories of our educators, stories of our students and work. Someday, sooner than later, all the stories will be from the individuals. They will be the evidence of change.

Day Two-digital story workshop

This day was to be finishing up scripts, getting the story as an audio VoiceOver file, and begin making the cake of the digital story. There were quite a few technical difficulties, more than should be expected. The calmness of the facilitators helped the group and amazingly, this group was stacked with individuals who tend to take things on themselves and all moved forward. Again, the facilitators were more challenged with things they had no control over, but kept it without drama and making it a better than might have been experience hampered by problems.

I had worked on my script the night before. I actually came in with less than 260 words! My story was different than many in the workshop. I was not going back in time, but just a little back and in the present and while it is a personal story that only I can tell, not one that could not be experienced by others. I also had the curse of more visuals available than others because the story was about visuals. Keeping it 3 minutes or just a little more was going to be difficult with access to over 100,000 photos! I also needed to focus on the fact this is a story - not a slide show or presentation. The subtle difference is what makes it important.

As things were going on, I found the experience was very much what we have been talking about for students. Self directed, personalized learning, where the learner is in charge and responsible.

We all could have moaned and groaned about all the tech failures. We all could have sat there and wait to be told what to do. but we didn't.

Instead, we knew we were given a "digital cookbook"' it had all the steps in it. but, if I didn't look ahead at the goal, a story completed.....I could have sat there and had nothing. I could have been the student waiting for permission to go to the next step. I could have been the student that needed every step viewed and acknowledged before moving on to know if I was doing it right instead of knowing I was doing what was right for what I needed to learn. I could have been the student to disrupt others because I didn't realize the empowerment of collaboration and independent focus meant.

This experience has shown me we are not that far off from transforming education into personalized learning. We need to begin in helping all learners understand the power of personalized learning. Personalized learning in the meaning of owning it yourself and not waiting for others to tell you what step or where you should be or measuring your achievement on any other goals but the high ones set for you.

This was not what the workshop was to deliver. It was to deliver the support and best practice of creating a digital story that carries meaning and value as a communication. It however became more for me.