Week 8- Digital Storytelling

This week I learned how to make a video on animoto.com. I was able to use my pictures from my Study Abroad trip in England this summer and put them in slides to music. I also learned about the history of audio formats dating back to the 1800s to the present. I also read an article about popular audio formats in technology today.

I can use what I learned this week about digital storytelling and making movies on the computer in my own classroom when I become a teacher. I could find some pictures that represent what the students may be studying and put them together with music to make a movie. Presenting the pictures digitally to music would probably engage the students more, and it would help them to pay attention to the lesson better.

Here is a link to the video that I made on animoto.com this week:
Study Abroad Trip to England



The video above I found on youtube and it is a very good example of digital storytelling. It retells the story of Animal Farm written by George Orwell. The story is told through text and pictures that represent what the text is saying. The story is also played to music which sort of sets the mood of the story. I could make a movie like this when I become a teacher, and retell other stories that the children may be reading in class so that they could better understand the stories. The digital storytelling would also act as a visual aide for the students who learn better visually.

Week 7- Visual Literacy

This week I learned how to use Photoshop. I did the photoshop tutorial project in class and learned how to customized backgrounds in pictures and also learned how to import my own pictures on Photoshop. I also learned about layering and found out that if you do not label your layers it makes it difficult to create your project. This week I also learned more about visual literacy and digital storytelling.

It is important that I learn how to use Photoshop as an elementary education major because I could use Photoshop in my future classroom in order to customize pictures for particular projects that we may be doing. Visual literacy and digital storytelling are also important because they can be used as alternative ways of teaching the children, instead of just standing in front of the class and lecturing all day. The visual literacy and the digital storytelling can help the children who are visual learners learn the same concepts in a more efficient way.



This video that I found on youtube presents a way that you can cut out the background of a picture and change it to a different background. The video tells the viewer how to do this through written directions on slides and by showing them how to do it. The video uses visual literacy to explain the directions of using Photoshop. This video relates to what I learned in class this week because it explains how to use a part of Photoshop and it uses visual literacy, which is also something that I have been learning about in class.