DIGITAL STORYTELLING AND VIDEO PRODUCTION

Our class of New Technologies in Language Teaching  opened before us other useful technological tools which can make English classes in Armenia more interesting and productive. Because  now with wikis, blogs and podcasts we have also been taught to integrate digital storytelling and video production. Sometimes those materials  that are provided do not match to  our needs in this or that way.  

  And we want to create them by ourselves. Handmade stories would not impact the learners motivation in the same way as it is with digital storytelling because I think it’s not only important what you tell to your learners but equally important how you do it.

I was previously used to doing powerpoint presentations but inserting sounds, animations and designing the presentation made me get interested in it so much that I have decided to teach it to my students  too. Also, I was shocked how my classmates made films with a moviemaker and I’ll certainly try that magic tool too.

Storyboarding seems to me a good idea as it allows to organize images, music, text and the motion in advance. Let me find a tutorial and see how I can make a storyboard in Microsoft office Word.  One of them is http://www.microsoft.com/education/enus/teachers/guides/Pages/digital_storytelling.aspx

This is a PDF document which shows everything step by step. Here is what I got:

1.      Text 2.      Music 3.      Narration 4.      Title slide 5.      Interview
This is my daughter. In this picture she is three  years old. She is playing a game and seems to be  very happyJ

When all the pieces of the story is in front of the creator  he can see everything more vividly and the planning of the story will be more detailed. And I completely agree with the statement that “storyboarding transforms video projects from chaos into order” which was mentioned in Sadun’s book.

The lesson following digital storytelling was about video production. In my life I have shot a lot. But film production was something new to me and I was eager to folow the process. At first it seemed to me easier but then too many  details  made my work more and more challenging and interesting. In our group we created the story tutorial. Technological unawereness made us face a hard time. At first we shot in my Ipad. Then we were wondering how to transfer it to the moviemaker. The solution was that we copied it in PC. The next problem was that the video was  of a different category which couldn’t be read. Then that video was transformed to the Mac  and  the video was made in Imovie. As we hadn’t used Imovie before that so it took us a lot to concentrate and find the necessary steps.

While shooting our video we used Sadun’s book as a guide. I especially referred to the second chapter and was finding out the three main shots and POV variations.

Overall these two tools as the other previous ones will  also serve a great deal to Armenian teachers. They can provide our pupils with lots of authentic information such as we created with our peers. It will introduce just what is needed no more no less. Iideos. It’s also a good idea to involve Armenian learners in the process of creating digital stories or   videos. Let them shoot and write stories, make films. As podcasts, blogs, wikis and other tools, these two also require creativity, engagement in the job and peer interaction. This is where our learners  can put their vivid imagination and soul.