Wow. This week has been a journey for me in a number of ways. First, I finished off my 3rd school year at CHS and moved out of my classroom as my family will be making a big move to the Texas Panhandle this summer. This last week was extra bittersweet as I prepared to leave my classroom, my students and my sweet colleagues.
Not only has this transition been a journey, but I have also been on an educational journey working toward my Master’s in Education Technology Leadership from Lamar University. This week our topic has been digital story-telling.
To be honest, I started this week of classwork with excitement. I have had my students use digital storytelling in a number of ways. I have encouraged other teachers to do the same, but there is something cathartic about getting to tell my own story.
Our class read and watched work from http://www.storycenter.org and Joe Lambert, who works at Story Center. Separately, I have also fallen in love with NPR’s Story Corps project as well.
In our weekly web conference, our course professor encouraged us to branch out and use tools that are new to us. I have been using iMovie for about the last 2 years (thanks to @mradkins), and it has become my “go to” movie-making product for educational purposes… heck, I even taught my husband how to use it to make videos for our church on Sundays! This week, I decided to explore a tool that I was introduced to this February at the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA) conference in Austin: Spark Video, which is an Adobe product.
See my Digital Story below:
I have to admit that this was not only fun for me, it was also a creative outlet. I am a writer. I always have been, and I’d like to think that I always will be. However, for the last 5 years, I’ve also been a Wife, a Mother, an Educator, and an extra busy person all around. This gave me a chance to focus on a couple of things I’ve written in the past (the script from this came from my personal blog post “Ten Years and a Yellow Butterfly”) and deeply process them in a way that I’ve had a tendency to overlook in the last several years.
You see, I’d like to believe that education is meant to be a journey. This week of learning for me has reaffirmed the deeply held convictions and passions within me about who I am as an educator and how I hope to be everyday in my classroom.
Enjoy, CL
p.s. I got a little giddy over this project and actually did a second video as well… Here it is:
@cwilsonspanish 