Digital Storytelling 

One of the main focuses that we teach in kindergarten in order to help teach students to read is storytelling.  We have them create their own mind movies and think about the little details.  Now that most of my students are able to read, they have gotten better at telling their own stories and sharing their own opinions.  I think that integrating digital storytelling can help their writing and help them understand that their opinions matter to the world and how to communicate those opinions to others as well. 

Since creating digital stories on their own using Chromebooks or other applications is not applicable in kindergarten or my school, I think that a creative way to have my students digitally storytell would be for me to video them talking about a certain topic.  By videoing them, I will really be able to get their true personality and feelings to shine through without feeling embarrassed when doing it in front of the whole class.  By videoing them, it also challenges them to speak in complete sentences and use their words to tell how they are feeling or an event that happened to them.  I think that my students will enjoy doing this activity because they love to be theatrical and talk to me about things and they will step up to the occasion when there is a video camera in front of them.  By giving them the chance to talk about their story rather than write sentences about it, I am having them explore giving more details rather then being confined to worrying about how to spell words or grammar which may hold them back when writing.  I would have the class watch each others videos and talk about what they liked about each others stories and maybe how they can improve their storytelling abilities.