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Topics for Class Seven:
Review Assignments
from Class 6
Royalty-Free Music Options
Writing a Script
Assignments for Next
Class:
* Reading Assignments
*
Blog Assignments
* Hands-On
Assignment 7
Review Assignments from
Last Class
Hands-On Assignment:
For this week's hands-on assignment, you should select an
episode from the Engines of Our Ingenuity website (http://uh.edu/engines/)
that you will use for the Engines assignment that is due on
Wednesday, November 5, 2008. For this midterm project
assignment, you will create a digital story using images that
you find to illustrate the narration of the episode you
selected. You may also add music if you think it will enhance
the presentation. Refer to the example episodes shown above to
see how these audio episodes look with images and music added.
The Engines episode you select may be on any topic (related to
popular culture or not).
For this week, you should begin looking for and saving images
that can be used to illustrate the episode you selected. Also,
make sure that you can download the audio file of the episode as
we did in this week's class.
Personal Engines Blog Assignment (6a) -Selecting an Episode:
Also, please post a comment on your personal blog in which you
describe the particular Engines episode you plan to use for the
midterm project, why you like this topic and selected it, and
please include the episode number. Remember, that some episodes
have been redone (and improved) by Dr. Lienhard, so make sure
that if you find two episodes on the same topic, select the most
recent one (the one with the higher number).
Discussion
Blog Assignment
(6b):
Post a comment in which you discuss one or more topics you are
considering for your final semester project. Beginning next
week, you will be asked to begin writing a first draft of a
script on the topic you plan to use for the final project. So
for this week's blog posting, you should include a brief outline
of at least some of the major themes you think may be included
in your project.
Royalty-Free Music
Options
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http://www.jamendo.com/en/
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You can copy, distribute, advertise, and perform
this album as long as you: 1) give credit to the
artist, 2) don’t use this album for commercial
purposes, and 3) don’t alter, transform, or build
upon this album. |
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https://magnatune.com/today/
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The
Magnatune
website explicitly states the requirements for using music downloaded
from their website in a non-commercial project, including student
projects.
Non-Commercial Use
No paid license is
required for people creating new works for non-commercial use.
You must
meet the
legal requirement for "non-commercial use" as defined by the
Creative Commons License which governs all Magnatune MP3 files.
Please
note that if you are a "non-profit institution" this does not
necessarily imply that your use is "non-commercial". Please consult the
license for details.
You must
abide by the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike use restrictions
placed by the license.
Common
examples of uses we consider non-commercial are:
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anything a student makes while attending school
(i.e. homework)
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demos, resume and other samples by individuals, even
if they're being used to get a job or solicit contracts (we assume
you'll want to use our music at your job once you get one)
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films that are being shown in places where no
admission fee is charged
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GNU/Berkeley/OSI licensed games or software that are
given away for free (or included incidentally inside a larger
distribution, even in a pay-distribution)
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Remixes that are given away for free (we're active
participants in
CC mixter)
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Podcasts and video blogs
If you
meet these requirements, you have two options:
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To get the best-quality audio: we ask that
you buy the album if you want to get a perfect quality audio
version. You can then use the album for free in your student
project.
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Download 128k mp3s with speaking on them: You
can also
download the MP3s for this album. Each mp3 will end with spoken
text that says "you just heard..." If you'd rather not have the
speaking at the end of the mp3s (and we assume you would) please see
option number one above.
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http://www.podsafeaudio.com/
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By submitting material to the
Service, you represent and warrant that: We, our customers and
licensees shall not be required to make any payments with respect to
material that you submit to our sites, including, but not limited
to, payments to you, third parties, music publishers, mechanical
rights agents, performance rights societies, persons who contributed
to or appear in your materials, your licensors, unions or guilds;
By submitting sound recordings or musical compositions or other
audio and/or audio-visual content to us, you grant us, our
affiliates, and our business partners a worldwide, royalty-free,
nonexclusive license to:
-
publicly perform, publicly
display, broadcast, encode, edit, alter, modify, reproduce,
transmit, manufacture, distribute and synchronize with visual
images your material, in whole or in part, alone or in
compilation with content provided by third parties, through any
medium now known or hereafter devised for the purpose of
demonstrating, promoting or distributing your material, to users
seeking to download or otherwise acquire it and/or (ii) storing
the work in a remote database accessible by users;
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Make your material
accessible as audio and/or video streams;
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Writing a Script
At its core, digital storytelling
allows computer users to become creative storytellers
through the traditional processes of selecting a topic,
conducting research, writing a script, and developing an
interesting story. This material is then combined with
various types of multimedia, including computer-based
graphics, recorded audio, computer-generated text, video
clips, and music so that it can be played on a computer,
uploaded on a web site, or burned on a DVD. The entire
process is visually displayed in the figure below.
The Writing Challenge
Many students have trouble
learning to formulate an educationally sound argument,
and just providing students with a library of digital
images and computer-based authoring software will not be
beneficial to students or educators. There are many
helpful resources for students, and Ohler and
Dillingham’s Visual Portrait of a Story as shown in the
figure below is part of a detailed description of story
elements that can be helpful to students and educators
as they construct their own stories.
Ohler and Dillingham’s Visual Portrait of a Story
A Questioning Toolkit
(http://www.fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html)
from the online journal From Now On (http://www.fno.org/index.html)
is a resource that can be used to introduce students to
effective questioning techniques that may help them in
their attempts to formulate the dramatic questions that
will form the basis of their own stories.
Marco Torres, a nationally
recognized social studies teacher and technology
director at San Fernando High School in California,
encourages his students to use multimedia projects to
tell stories about their community and its history.
Torres teaches his students to write scripts, develop
storyboards and construct timelines during a planning
stage that is just the first part of the design and
development process. Next comes the production stage in
which students use technology equipment such as
computers, digital cameras and microphones to collect or
create the images, narration, and music and text that
will be used in their projects.
Tom Banaszewski conducted a Master’s Thesis in which he
investigated the use of Digital Storytelling in Grades 4
through 12, by examining the storytelling process, the
motivation of teachers and the possible alignment of
Digital Storytelling with curricular goals and school
district or statewide education standards. In his study,
Banaszewski echoes the opinions of many that when the
focus is just on the technology of creating digital
stories and other literacy skills are ignored, a number
of troubling issues arise:
- Students cannot explain
what Digital Storytelling is and why it is different
from a computerized slideshow;
- Students do not recognize
the power of their own voices;
- Students concentrate on
using the computer before a story’s script has been
completed; and
- Students waste time on
unnecessary transitions and special effects.
Banaszewski proposes that the
solution to these issues is for students (and teachers)
to concentrate on developing narrative skills and
focusing on what makes a good non-digital story, the
same established practices found in traditional writing
and composition classes. In his own classroom, he notes
that the technology was always secondary to the
storytelling, a view that cannot be overemphasized.
Assignments for Next
Class:
Reading Assignments:
Literacy Through
Technology: The Power of Digital Storytelling
http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2410
Chapter 3: Approaches to
Scripting
from the Digital Storytelling Cookbook, pages 20 - 25.
http://www.storycenter.org/cookbook.pdf
Hands-On Assignment 7:
For this week's hands-on
assignment, you should write a first version of the script on
the popular culture topic you will be using for your final
semester digital story project. You should email your script
to Dr. Robin at:
brobin@uh.edu
Blog Assignment 7:
In this week's class, we held our
first round of story circles in which students met in small
groups to discuss the scripts they are writing for the final
semester digital story project. For this week's blog assignment,
go to your personal blog at and post a comment in which you
discuss some of the feedback and ideas that came out of the
story circle experience. In your posting, talk briefly about how
you think this might affect the script that you will be
submitting for next week or if not, why not.
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