I like to think I am getting the hang of Lead Teacher Days and this one was on Digital Story Telling at Mapua School. We started of with a few exemplars of great digital stories like this one from a Robert Lloyd- a Brit describing his kiwi adventure.

We followed that by a look at where digital story telling fits with the curriculum- we quickly gave up as it fits just everywhere. That was my point really. Digital stories are an excellent media for improving literacy across the spectrum really. We then looked at some of the tools we might use- iPhoto, iMovie, Garageband, Keynote, Powerpoint, Moviemaker, Photostory3 and a number of Web2.0 tools thrown in for good measure. My favourite at the moment I would like to use with a class is Videocue.

Videocue picks up your iSite camera and with a scrolling autocue you read your script that you can change the speed of if you are a slow reader. When you are done it automatically saves a Quicktime version onto your movies. Makes a girl almost want to have a class of her own to practice with!

We then set about creating digital stories based on a couple of poems I had pre-selected. People worked in groups as would happen in a classroom and our progress was recorded on our Discover IT Tasman cluster wiki. The afternoon was spent sharing and planning for our next school tour and Eric Frangenheim‘s visit in early July.