After reflecting on tomorrow's readings and the posts on this site, it's inspiring that there are so many educational uses for digital storytelling. Thinking back on my own experiences growing up, a highlight was making a video adaptation of Romeo and Juliet starring Cabbage Patch Kids and complete with a cassette tape soundtrack playing in the background. New technology has not only removed some of the technical barriers we faced, but also has provided many exciting possibilities - such as more easily combining video, photo, written and spoken text and graphics and also allowing for easier collaboration. Thinking about my current work, I am wondering if it would be possible for us to create digital stories to put on our website for educators. We currently provide written essays, videos and pictures, but digital stories would be another way of presenting the material - and one that I had never considered before. When thinking about students using the material we currently provide to make their own digital stories, I wonder if there are different ways we should be presenting the resources so that they can be more useful.
Perhaps this is indicative of my age, but I was unsettled by George Mayo's quote toward the end of "High Tech Reflection Strategies" in which he proposes, "Imagine if you started blogging in kindergarten and blogged all the way through high school." He notes that there would be a great record of reflection. I wonder, however, how private these blogs would be. While I certainly am supportive of reflection, I worry about children reflecting in a public or semi-public place. When rereading journals I occasionally wrote in while growing up, they are more often than not cringe-worthy and certainly nothing I would want to share with others...or at least not without a disclaimer. In regard to children and blogs, this further emphasizes the need to teach responsible digital citizenship.
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