Mary Had a Digital Story

Digital storytelling is a new aspect of writing stories for my students.  The children in my class love watching digital stories.  So it seemed like a natural addition to the student learning in my classroom.  We recently read the book, Mary Had a Little Lamp, by Jack Lechner.

  

It is a cute spin on the traditional nursery rhyme Mary Had a Little Lamb.  The story ends with, "Now Mary has a toaster."  The children were excited to brainstorm where Mary would bring her toaster.  After creating a list of ideas, each child illustrated a page for the story.  Here is an initial draft of our digital story...

I created this digital story using VoiceThread.  VoiceThread is a quick and easy way to use images, text, or voice to share videos with others.  It can be used with children of all ages or amongst adults.  I simply uploaded photos of my student's work.  After a couple of clicks, all of the photos were uploaded.  Most of the photos uploaded in the proper order for the digital story, but I easily dragged the other photos around on the storyboard to change some of them.  Then my students' and I prepared to record comments.  Low and behold the technology went on the fritz!  I'm not quite sure which set it in motion; the server or the microphone on the laptop.  Nonetheless I restarted the computer and hoped for the best.  I was able to have a couple children record comments, but this is all I have so far.  So stay tuned for the tales of Mary and her toaster!

F.Y.I.:  If you are interested in creating your own VoiceThread check out thess tutorials.