Blog Post 3: Storytelling

Use multiple platforms for storytelling you say? Well, I simply must give it a shot!

Throughout my youth, I was always involved in the theatre. I went to an arts high school and specialized in the dramatic arts. All I did for those four years of high school was put on a hat of a character and try to share their story. When we took our Indigenous literature course last fall, we spoke a lot about how theatre can help develop kids empathy and ability to express emotions. I think it is a very important piece to an education journey.

There are many ways to bring theatre and story into the classroom. Even using story in math has been proven to be helpful for children’s contextual understanding. Everyone has a story. Stories share the human experience, teach us about morals in community, and connect us to places we are far away from. Some educators may have a bit of a hard time finding ways to embed storytelling within their lesson plans. This is how I can see video editing being a valuable tool for some educators. It is a very independent learning tool for the kids that encourages creativity while teaching them valuable storytelling skills! There are so many effects you can include! Since I’ve been in elementary, there seems to be plethora of resources to use without copyright. This can encourage the imagination of these young visionaries.

There are many cons to including these kinds of softwares into lessons – I found it extremely difficult to pay attention after getting through one task. I would stop paying attention and miss how to finish it out! I can only imagine how difficult this might be with a class of 25 grade 6’s or 7’s. The other con is that there are still many teachers who are tech-adverse… Seems shocking in this world, but there are some educators who have avoided keeping up to date on new technologies and it may be too much of a gap for them to start teaching this. Finally, I think there is a lot of value in performing stories in real life. You receive feedback from your audience immediately and you work through the vulnerability you may feel being up in front of a crowd of people.

There is a wide range of ability when it comes to video editing and it is important to recognize that as you are assessing student’s projects. For instance… I am not a strong video editor and was lacking the creativity today. I’m sure the next two pieces will be wildly underwhelming compared to some of my classmates. But, an assignment is an assignment and I believe I completed the tasks at hand.