My First Trip to Africa

This is my final project for my storytelling class, enjoy!

Storytelling in Education

I was struck by a reading in my digital storytelling class this week that described how a teacher used stories to teach English as a second language. It was really interesting to know how adults continue to learn through stories and how teachers can enhance their stories through the use of simple techniques such as rhyming and repetition.

As a librarian I read to children almost every day and continue to struggle with making sure that I am incorporating early literacy skills into every storytime. I want to make sure that the children who attend my storytimes are learning through play. In the past it has been hard to determine what types of stories to include but through the readings and lectures in my digital storytime class I have learned that picking a good story is important but the delivery of the story it is also important, maybe more than the story itself. My Professor mentioned in her lecture that asking involving children in the storytime also improves the children's ability to absorb the ideas that are being presented. I think that starting this early in a child's development leads not only to children developing literacy skills but also being able to use stories in other aspects as life. Gaming for example, children can create games out of stories that they make up themselves and this gives them a social outlet. Whether they are socially popular or awkward using stories to relate to peers is a great way for children to learn about other people and cultures. Creating and sharing stories helps kids find a happy and positive place in their world.

How I Met My Husband

Here is the story of how my husband and I met, it is the first digital story that I have created!

This is an updated version of the West African Cinderella folktale, Chinye. I added sound effects, and the end isn't cut off. Enjoy!

The Wolf & the Crane

This is my retelling of Aesop's The Wolf & the Crane. 

And this is the story of how it was created. 

It was a warm summer Tuesday night when I sat down at my computer to start my third assignment, the most important and exciting yet. Since watching the tutorial videos at work earlier in the day I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that this was going to be a long and arduous night. I grabbed my huge iced coffee and started to load the tutorial videos.

After viewing the videos a second time I went to the inter webs to find a short story. I went straight to Aesop’s Fables and found one that was short and grabbed my interested: The Wolf and the Crane. I found a story with a bit of drama, action and, albeit dark, humor. I followed the directions and downloaded, started and tested audacity. I started to feel better about the assignment when the tech worked and it only took me 4 times to record an acceptable version of the story.

However, my concession had come too soon, because it took me the better part of the next couple of hours to find acceptable, free and public domain or free use sounds that I liked and fit my story. After finally finding some audio I discovered that adding and manipulating the tracks was easy and fun! I was starting to feel good about the assignment again.

I learned a lot from this assignment as well as having a really good time doing it. There was definitely a time that I felt overwhelmed and frustrated with the assignment, but it didn’t have to do with the tools or my story so I was able to overcome these feelings. This assignment also made me feel better about my final project because I have successfully learned another major competent that I will need to complete it. This was a great practice run; this assignment taught me how to use this tool, how to search for good sounds and little nuances like where I need to leave pauses or breaks in case I want to put sound effects in and that if I decide not to I can tighten it up later.