Digital Story: las estaciones y el tiempo

This week, we learned about digital stories. Then, we were challenged to create our own. I wanted to make something I could use with my students, so I didn't want to do anything too personal, and it needed to address my course objectives. Then I came up with the idea of telling the story of our weather here in Idaho, which is in the Spanish I curriculum that I teach. It's something that can easily be represented with pictures and narration, and that's usually how I teach it. (I just have to perform live several times a day, so having a video to show might be nice.) Even though my final product isn't necessarily a "traditional" digital story, I think I was able to use the key elements to create something I would actually use with beginning Spanish students.

In this video, I describe the weather in each season, along with an activity I like to do in each one, and then I explain the (opposite) seasons of the southern hemisphere. At the end of the video, I share my favorite season and ask students to do the same. Then, to close the video, I go over the essential weather vocabulary and ask students to describe their favorite season. There are instructions to pause the video so that students can share their answers.

I used the personalization principle in the following ways:

• I had a conversational and polite tone of voice.
• I talked directly to students, using second person.
• I talk about myself, using first person (as a "visible author").

I learned a lot from creating this video, and pulling it all together was pretty interesting. I created the slides in Google, then presented the slideshow while recording it (and my narration) using Camtasia. Then, in Camtasia, I added all the annotations to focus the viewers on what I am talking about. (I usually do this by gesturing and pointing all day in my classroom!) I was actually surprised by how easy it is to do this sort of thing with Camtasia. Adding the Vivaldi music was a no-brainer, and I was sure to mute it while talking because I think that music and narration (in a new language) would be too much for students to take in at once.

Here is the embedded video:

And here is a direct link to the video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/b9hEquHfcIo