What are ebooks and digital storytelling?

As an educator I have never heard of the terms ebooks and digital storytelling until I took this course. During my research and reading from the Library 2.0 and Beyond, I now have a pretty good idea what they are.

Ebooks are online resources. They take up hardly any physical space, the weight is very lite, and it provides very little disk space. For example, The Civil War holds the same amount of space as MP3 format. The majority of ebooks formats are searchable and they can substitute for dictionaries. Also, they can make tables of contents and indexes to be used as hyperlinks freely accessible and commercial. Project Gutenberg is one of the largest and oldest online sources of ebooks. It provides 19,000 public domain works that has been proofread by volunteers. Manybooks.net reformat a huge collection of Gutenberg texts into a e-reader format. Ebooks has a variety of commercial content. Some of them includes Mobipocket, eReader, the Palm eBook Store, and cookbooks. Reference books are available in ebooks for law, medicine, and humanities. Ebooks focus on areas where print materials are lacking.

Digital storytelling is a story told using moving digital images, digital voiceover narrative, and digital music. They are short and sweet usually 3 to 5 minutes long. Digital storytelling is created for people to tell stories about the lives using drama and emotional content. It must include facts established form context and meaning. Library 2.0 and Beyond lists the seven elements of digital storytelling:

• Point (of view)
• Dramatic question
• Emotional content
• The gift of your voice
• The power of the soundtrack
• Economy
• Pacing

Digital stories can/cannot have music; however, the absence of music speaks volumes. With music it produces mood, builds emotion, and tells the story. The story must be economical with approximately 150 words. Digital storytelling helps promotes the technology use of the libraries, educate students, teachers, and the community.

At my school digital storytelling is being used the technology language arts, and government classes. I am not sure about ebooks, but the use of it will be beneficial for the students.

Technology Training

One of the roles of a media specialist is to share his/her technology expertise with teachers that will assist them with classroom instruction. The media specialist must find the best way to offer her services to teachers.
As a new media the first thing I would like to do is get too know the teachers on the team.
Cultivating relationships with teachers will help them to be more open to help and suggestions.
During the weekly staff meetings I would occasionally ask permission to give a brief abstract of a new technology that could assist in the classroom or others services that the media specialist has to offer. In addition, during in-service time I would talk with the administration about teaching a class on technology and information retrieval in the classroom.
Another way that I would help teachers with technology is by setting up a blog. On this blog I would write articles on different types of technology with links to sites that would be helpful. In addition, I would list website that pertain to what is currently being taught according to the curriculum, the websites would change every grading period to align to what is currently being taught.

Professional Development

Professional Development is extremely important. It keeps faculty members abreast of new and innovative ideas to help reach and teach all students. However its only truly effective if the training is properly implemented.

As an aside I just want to share the fact that one neat thing that we’ve had happen at our school this year is the installation of Acti-Boards in some of our classrooms. However only those teachers whose classrooms would be adorned with this technology were scheduled to attend the training for this new piece of technology.

I think staff development should be held by grade level and not the entire school. This decreases the group size and therefore trainers will be able to provide more individualized assistance if needed. As teachers, we get so much “new stuff” thrown at us, we often don’t get the time to digest those new tools and strategies before we are meeting and being professionally developed on something else.

Below are some tips on how I think to conduct effective professional development:

• Small-sized groups no more than a 1:15 trainer to trainees ratio (especially for training that involves many steps.
• Hands-on training; trainees are actually “doing"
• Topics are relevant and useful to everyday teaching and learning
• Opportunities to ask questions and time is permitted to have questions answered
• Valid methods to provide and receive feedback
  
  

Technology Training in Schools

Technology training in schools today is a must! Teachers need to be updated on the newest technology equipment or resources. At the school where I volunteer the teachers need a lot of assistance in different areas when they use the computers in the media center. That is why it is the media specialist's responsibility to conduct workshops for them. She/he could have a technical person to come in from the county to implement this. The media specialist may have a full plate to do it herself. Technology staff developments would not be a waste of time. This would be an asset to any school. Technology is integrated into the curriculum to engage student's learning. Students are more interested and focused when teachers introduce technology projects to them. This takes students to another level when learning. Technology in the schools helps teachers to become more proficient and effective at their jobs. The web site www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr176.shtml discusses how teachers should be trained to use a computer, and how to integrate technology into the curriculum. Once technology is mastered by teachers and students both of them could move forward in life. Schools would be established and known for developing high achievers.

Video Distribution System in our school

Our video distribution system has been used very limitedly. For one, unfortunately at my school, we have yet to get started with our morning broadcast via video. That is one of the main ways that we use our video distribution system. Also from time to time, the system is used to broadcast videos schoolwide; for example for school assemblies and awareness videos. We recently conducted a fundraiser for leukemia patients and the video distribution system was used to broadcast a cartoon schoolwide. The system is also used to share the Principal’s Book of the Month. During special PTA programs, performances are broadcast schoolwide so that the teachers and students waiting in the classrooms for their time to get on stage won't miss any of the production.
Concerning GPB...this has been such a chaotic year for us thus far that I doubt if any of our teachers, including myself, remember that to use GBP. In the past, however, we have been able to view GPB sponsored videos by letting the media specialist know the title of the video and at what time we would be in place to view it. This would sometimes conflict with other classes who may also want to view a video via closed circuit T.V. This became a first come, first served service because there wasn’t a set procedure for this

School TV News/ Video Distribution

At the school where I volunteer they do use the video Distribution system. The media specialist uses the system to show video’s for certain grade levels at a specific time. For example, last week they had (ADAD) Alcohol and Drug Awareness Conference, during this week they played anti drug video from the media center. The classes could tune in at a certain time to watch the videos. In addition during the big celebration on Friday they had a famous singer to come in and surprise the 4th – 6th graders. Since the younger students were not allowed to attend they broadcasted it to their class rooms. In addition, at times videos will be broadcasted from the media center when it is requested by class room teachers. The media center does not conduct morning announcements over the Television but uses the PA system. Throughout the day the time is displayed on channel four so the whole school is on the same time schedule.

School News and GPB Resources

At my school TV news is done on a daily basis by the media specialists. Everyone is tuned in to Channel One Network at noon. This network was bought by Dekalb County Schools. Every school is able to show this network. This channel shares news with teens that inspires conversations between teens and peers, teens and parents, and teens and educators. It is a student news broadcast which captures high school students attention. Furthermore, this channel trains and informs student's on today's issues, politics, and interviews. Channel One has a history of training teens how to become journalists. It provides a web sites, http://www.channelonenetwork.com/ to enhance guided discussions between educators, students, and parents. The students at my school really enjoy viewing this station. They are provided with critical thinking strategies which is a lifelong skill.

Georgia Public Broadcasting resources are used as an integration into teachers' lesson plans at my school. For example, many teachers use United Streaming to download videos for their class whenever they are implementing a specific lesson. Also teachers are using podcasts for students to create oral book reviews. Georgia Public Broadcasting Digital Library is a great place to find resources in audio/media. Teachers are using http://www.georgiastandards.org/ to create their lessons to line up with Georgia Department of Education curriculum. These are all outstanding collaborative tools to help teachers and students to become successful in education.