Digital story telling for success.

Digital story telling for success. SINCE 1999, SCOTT COUNTY Scott County is the name of eleven counties in the United States of America: Scott County, Arkansas Scott County, Illinois Scott County, Indiana Scott County, Iowa Scott County, Kansas Scott County, Kentucky Scott County, Minnesota Schools in Kentucky has been a leader indigital storytelling Digital Storytelling refers to using new digital tools to help ordinary people to tell their own real-life stories. An emerging termIt is an emerging term, one that arises from a grassroots movement that uses new digital tools to help ordinary people to tell their own thanks to its director of technology, JeanneBiddle, who with the district's previous tech coordinator, LeslieFlanders, launched a tool to help teachers improve the writing skills oftheir students in preparation for state assessments. "Kentucky students in fourth, eighth and 12th grades hadwriting assessments," says Biddle, who has been director since2004, but some teachers struggled with the difficulty of preparingstudents to create the Kentucky Writing Assessment's requiredwritten portfolio pieces. Flanders and Biddle believed that if studentscould write what the assessment's Holistic Scoring Guide called a"proficient" or "distinguishing piece" that wasliterally a script about a student's chosen subject-and create avideo about it--that teachers could approach teaching how to write aquality portfolio piece in a new way. 60 Storytelling StorytellingAesopsemi-legendary fabulist of ancient Greece. [Gk. Lit.: Harvey, 10]MünchäusenBaron traveler grossly embellishes his experiences. [Ger. Lit. Teachers During a summer workshop in 1999, Biddle and Flanders modeled for14 teachers how to take a personally written narrative and film it,using additional media like sound or pictures to illustrate theirwritten narrative. Teachers learned how to brainstorm with students about choosing agenre for their portfolio piece; assist with drafts and foster peerreview; help students create a visual storyboard to sequence the digitalstory; and use digital video-editing software like iMovie, Final Cut Proand Pinnacle Studio Pinnacle Studio is a non-linear video editing software application manufactured by Pinnacle Systems, a division of Avid Technology. It is the consumer level counterpart to Pinnacle's former professional level software, Liquid Edition (now Avid Liquid). DV for voiceovers, and Photoshop and ImageBlender tomanipulate pictures. After 16 hours of writing, editing and addingeffects, students had produced their own digital stories, and submittedwritten scripts as a portion of their grade-specific assessment. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "At one point we had 60 digital storytelling teachers in thedistrict," says Biddle. Though the written aspect was for thestudents' portfolios, the electronic outcomes of their hard workwere often shown in class or assemblies. Accessible Tech Tools "Scott County has always been recognized as cuttingedge," says Biddle, largely for the tech tools it's providedstudents and teachers, which she believes are "requirements fortoday's learning." "The majority of my work is based oninstruction and working with pockets of teachers interested inharnessing technology," says Biddle. Her personal goal is always to bring to her students the besttechnology she can. Biddle's notebooks contain countless ideas,success stories and failures that she believes are catalysts forcontinuous improvement. "Most often, questions I ask myself involvewhat are kids doing with technology at home, what are the 'cooltools' and Web sites that catch their attention, what is happeningin the corporate world, how can these pieces be integrated and alignedto content to engage students, and how can we involve teachers andleadership in the vision?" Videoconferencing allows students to attend classes on specialtopics held in other schools without having to leave their classrooms.The district uses a Voice over Internet Protocol See Internet and TCP/IP. (networking) Internet Protocol - (IP) The network layer for the TCP/IP protocol suite widely used on Ethernet networks, defined in STD 5, RFC 791. IP is a connectionless, best-effort packet switching protocol. (VoIP) system insteadof traditional phone lines, using lightning-fast T1 lines thanks toKentucky's allocation of $5 million for improving bandwidth acrossthe state. In 2002, the district started using GPS devices for"treasure hunts" to teach students about GIS (1) (Geographic Information System) An information system that deals with spatial information. Often called "mapping software," it links attributes and characteristics of an area to its geographic location. triangulation triangulation:see geodesy. The use of two known coordinates to determine the location of a third. Used by ship captains for centuries to navigate on the high seas, triangulation is employed in GPS receivers to pinpoint their current location on earth. data points that are used by fire and police departments to answeremergency calls. And, this year, Biddle funded a "Teach, Lead andInspire" grant of $25,000 that made available to any teacher in thedistrict hardware like interactive whiteboards, iPod Touches andprojectors. Says technology integration specialist Artie Ianow,"Teachers know that they can call or e-mail Jeanne directly andthat their concerns or requests will be addressed." Jeanne Biddle Scott County (Ky.) Schools Director of Technology, for six years Age: 51 Salary: $80,000 Students: 8,402 Schools: 13 Staff and faculty: 1,541 Per-pupil expenditure: $8,800 Web site: www.scott.kyschools.us Jennifer Elise Chase is a contributing writer for DISTRICTADMINISTRATION.