#DigilitSunday Crafting Digital Media


Crafting Digital Media is such an important topic because I think our students are really looking for opportunities to create! I am still in the early stages of learning how to do this myself, so I think I've held the reigns on crafting digital media, sometimes not allowing my students to do the creating part. For example, we used a green screen through the app Doink for our persuasive speeches last year (third grade). I took the video of the students talking and I did the work of creating the new background through the app. I learned a lot! But did the students? This year, I would like to "let it go" (Thanks, Elsa) and teach my students how to do more of the digital creating.

Part of teaching them how to craft digital media is also modeling and showing them possibilities. As I prepare for a new school year, one task is to send home a letter introducing myself, asking for supplies, and communicating about the year ahead. I decided to make a Google slide presentation about myself and then narrate it using Screencast-o-matic, which I just learned this summer. I downloaded it into SeeSaw, where I plan to have digital journals for my students this year. A QR code will be generated and put into my back to school letter, so students can scan the code and then listen to my presentation. I will also put the link in case some families do not have access to a QR code scanner. 

Here is the video I created: 



This summer, I've been creating weekly Smore newsletters around reading for my school community. Each newsletter has a Padlet where people can share what they are reading. Last week, I shared videos from Olivia Van Ledtje, a student who has been creating videos about her reading life. (You can find her on Twitter @thelivbits. She is awesome! Her mom supervises the account so it is a great kid-safe site to share with students). Two of my former students, who are sisters, were inspired! They created their own book review videos,which will be features in tomorrow's newsletter, but I'll give you the sneak preview today. It was very telling to me that after seeing a video of what one student could do, these students thought, "Why not us too?" and used digital media to share their ideas as well. 


I've been enjoying reading all the posts today on #DigiLitSunday and I was reminded that "creating" is the highest skill on Bloom's Taxonomy. I will keep this in mind as the new school year begins, looking for ways to help my students show their learning by crafting digital media. 



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