Digital Storytelling Reflection

I was very pleased to have the opportunity to create a digital storytelling video for class. My group decided to do a library tour/orientation for our fictional high school Dom HS. Since it was such a limited time limited, 3-4 minutes, we wanted to hit the important topics such as hours, contact information, databases, and the online catalog. We wanted to narrate the information but also put up an outline of what we would be talking about, email addresses and other important links and text. We also wanted to add some humor to our project such as a dated student ID picture, a funny cat meme.  We knew that library orientation is not the most riveting topics so we wanted the students to enjoy it.  

I think the most important part of our digital storytelling project is the screen cast of the online catalog and library website. Students need to know how to navigate these websites in order to request books, renew and search the catalog. By only narrating directions, I think it would have been too difficult for students to navigate. We wanted to add visual instructions as well. 

My group worked really well together. We all brought something to the project. I was so pleased with our final product! I thought it had a nice personal touch to it with our photo. 

I would love to use this in the future in my own library. I think the primary aged students would love to see a video with my voice over or even a picture of me in it. They would really enjoy it.  I think I could adjust the text and script to meet the needs of my library and my students. It would save my voice and make sure that I would get all the important topics and not forget anything with all the classes. I will definitely try to make a digital storytelling for library orientation/tour for my library. 

Book Trailer Reflection

I have a secret to share. As a school librarian, I have never made a book trailer! I use book trailers in lessons and love sharing them with my students to promote books. However, I have never ventured into the realm of creating my own or having my students create one. So, I was a novice for this assignment. I decided to use Animoto. It seemed like it was very user friendly and a common tool for creating book trailers. I had used iMovie before and so was somewhat familiar with that program. I wanted to try something new. Also, I have heard so many positive comments about Animoto. I was excited to try it myself.

I decided to create a book trailer for timely title, Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet. I had read it with my 2nd grade students. I liked the idea of creating a book trailer for a nonfiction title. This particular book in my library is in a very under utilized space. It is in the biography section that, sadly, is not looked at often. Mostly because it is separate from the rest of the collections. So, I thought it would be a great collection to highlight.

Click to learn more about the historic parade! 

I had no problem finding entertaining images to include in the book trailer. The pictures and photographs in the book are visually appealing and fun. Each page is an explosion of color! I used the colorful theme for the trailer. The book had a lot of red and yellow in it so I thought it would match well. I also wanted to incorporate some historical photos of the parade and Tony Sarg.

The hardest part for me in creating the book trailer was writing the text. With such limited time and space, every word counts. There wasn't enough space to write long descriptions or sentences for the book. So, I wrote short choppy sentences. Often having one word for each picture.  Also, I did not want to include a lot of text if I was using this for primary age students.

Overall, I really enjoyed using Animoto. I felt it was very easy and one could create book trailers rather quickly. There is definitely not a lot of personalization options to it. So, it would be very useful for primary students. They would only have a few steps to complete to create a great book trailer!

   

Balloons Over Broadway book trailer 

Promotional Flyer Reflection

My Twitter post using the below image to promote Hour of Code. 

I choose to create a promotional flyer for Hour of Code. I was introduced to Hour of Code only a few months ago. I had some questions about it. What it is? When is it? How do you implement it? Is it really an hour? I took my questions and simplified them for my flyers. I figured the questions I had are questions that my students' families would have regarding Hour of Code. I took a traditional route of design principles using when, what, where. Similar to what you would see on a traditional invitation. I think back to grade school birthday party invites. They were simple and had all the information clearly labeled. Those invitations were my inspiration when creating the print flyer. I used a blank template on LucidPress to create the print flyer. My audience for the flyer were for the families of my students. So, the overall appearance of the flyers are not overly elementary looking.  Also, since I am creating a flyer for a STEM activity I wanted it to look modern and minimal. I wanted it to mimic the programming event. 

I used the same principle with the online flyer. I included the who, what, when components. I used the same wording from the print flyer. However, I added  links to videos and websites. I  assume many families are unfamiliar with Hour of Code so I think the videos are very important. Families are able to watch the videos together. Then, are talking about what Hour of Code is, how it works and how easy it is! The  result is that the family may extend the Hour of Code project at home. Lastly, I was able to add details about Hour of Code in the digital flyer. The print flyer had a limited amount of space so I only wanted to include important information. It is somewhat of a teaser and encouraged families to explore the websites together and research Hour of Code. 

Regarding, the color scheme of the flyers I choose blue for two reasons. One our school color is blue and white. The other reason is that Hour of Code seems to have a blue/teal color scheme. 

The following images are just a few of the images for Hour of Code. I decided to use the first two images. I contemplated using the last image because it has an elementary look to it. However, I did not use it. I liked the idea of having consistency in the print and digital flyer such as the black blocks spelling CODE in the first two images. Also, the first image is perfect for the digital flyer because the use of Twitter symbols. I thought those would be a nice touch since families would be viewing this on a mobile device or computer.  I liked the second image for the print flyer because the text was aligned to the right. It added a nice design touch.