This document outlines a 3-session computer class for senior citizens focused on digital storytelling. The class helps students identify and share meaningful life experiences through group discussion, creating storyboards, and developing short slideshow presentations. In the first session, students discuss significant experiences and categorize them. Between sessions, they select images representing their stories. In the second session, they draft slideshows in PowerPoint. The third session involves converting presentations to the SlideShare format and posting them to a class blog for friends and family. The goal is for students to learn skills like uploading to blogs while sharing experiences with each other through multimedia projects.
10. Content – Learning Objectives Students will: Each determine a list of at least six exceptional experiences that are important, stand out, remember as a learning experience The point is to identify stories that… In groups of two or three, determine at least three major types or categories of experience that are the same or different. Evaluate as a large group which types of experiences are most important and why. Organize personal storyboards including at least the minimum three or more major types or characteristics determined by students to be important overall. Identify and save images that appropriately represent their stories Welcome peer review Create their own digital story for publication. They will learn to convert a PowerPoint slideshow using the software SlideShow and post to the class blog for public review by friends and family
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12. Story board in word processing program or with pencils and paper
29. Pedagogy - Assessment Students will assess themselves. They will be provided rubrics and learn to create rubrics and build on prior work creating a slide show I ask questions like “Does anyone have questions?” I walk around the room to see if we are at the same step or if more help is needed. When I have beginning students who need extra help I give the rest of the class work for the final project, like backgrounds, images, poetry, recipes, and famous quotations. My students passionately working is success.
30. Implementation Class One: Experiences lecture and class discussion (See learning strategies on slide seven.) Extra time during the two hours can be spent searching for images, famous quotes at brainyquotes.com or banners at flamingtext.com Class Two: Blog PPT results discussion draft discussion. We will review story boards, add images and backgrounds. Class Three: Finish PPT, convert to Slideshare, and post to class blog.
31. My Evaluation of the Lesson My students will evaluate me. They will be my success indicators. Their work will shine more brightly than my expectations. As a teacher I feel honored by seeing the gleam of insight in a student’s eyes when I’m not looking for it. My students are my teachers and I believe this lesson is a precious gift they will give to the world.
32. Finale Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is, not a preparation for life; education is life itself. John Dewey
Notas del editor
This unit’s focus is on a facilitated effort where students will use technology to tell and publish their own digital stories. They will use their earlier class experiences of developing a story board and a PowerPoint slideshow. A popular 2.0 technology called SlideShow will enable students to publish in a format that can be read on most computers even if that computer does not have PowerPoint Software. The mostly elderly students will be responsible for remembering and publicly reporting things in their lives that stand out, are unusual or exceptional. They should be able to collect, analyze, organize, evaluate and publicly share their life experiences data. Students will seek input on the draft from family and friends and revise digital story projects based on significant life experiences. Students should be able to remember and place relative values on their significant experiences. The purpose for this unit is to engage student self study in their specific personal situation using an environment where technology enhances learning. Elders should be able given support to produce a digital story that includes individual expressions of common experience while appreciating common life themes.
This unique student population majority is more than 70 years old. Many are Japanese Americans born and raised in Kaimuki on Oahu. The class is open to anyone, so students much younger than retirement age sometimes learn word processing and internet, then leave. No computing experience is required. In 1999 a young man’s mother was bedridden by blindness, and he thought about the loneliness and isolation many elders feel. He taught his mom to use DragonSpeak with email. With support from the Student Activities Office at Kapi`olani Community College he started “Networking Into the Millennium” as a student volunteer. I was helping as a tutor and was asked in 2000 to take primary responsibly for the class. At least six students have been coming back every year. One of my students is on oxygen with a walker. He tells me he misses class sometimes because he stays home to take care of his wife.Some students have a goal in mind like using email, learning word processing, investing online, playing real time online chess or pachinko. Most students say they care less about using the computer than the social element of spending time learning with friends. Developing technology socially in interaction is the general idea. Class schedules are very flexible because some people have trouble with sight, hearing, or movement. Students are encouraged to determine what we study. Sometimes students have questions or ideas that take our full two hours on Saturday. One of my students created a beautiful slide show of her Japanese garden with the song Ku`u Morning Dew in the background. Ku`u in Hawaiian means precious or beloved. The same student created a family genealogy slide show she shows at family gatherings. She created placards for a birthday that included her social groups. I am amazed by her talent for self expression using technology.This experience experiment is different because most students in this class remember the bombing of Pearl Harbor based on the perspective of being a teen or a young adult. Three of my students are named George, in their mid 80’s, and have been friends since grade school in Kaimuki. Many of their parents knew the poverty of the great depression as the children of immigrant workers with few rights. My students have told me stories of their experiences that change the way I think. One man told me he was one of the first men in Hawaii to teach a woman to fly an airplane. She told him that the other pilots only told her how to fly, but he took her up there and expected her to do it. He complimented me saying this is how I teach computing.When I have been fortunate enough to recruit a Japanese speaking tutor class size is bigger. Some students are married to native Japanese speakers. Some students travel together as couples so I don’t see them for months at a time. One younger elder likes to cruise the web and has dial up at home. He has become a good tutor for a man in class who has problems with short term memory