Where the rain meets forest

     Here is my first digital story! Creating a digital story takes hard-work and a lot of time, but in the end, you wind up with an awesome final product! I had a blast creating this, my friend's 9 year old twin sisters had a blast creating some of the pictures you'll see in the story! This is a project in which both teacher and students will enjoy creating. I created this digital story based on a Rainforest unit I created for a Language Arts course I took last semester. If I were to teach this unit in the classroom, I would go about incorporating this digital story as follows: 

1. Create a class KWL(Q ) chart to activate prior knowledge
2. Share "Where the rain meets forest" digital story 
3. Fill out the Q section of KWL chart for students who have additional questions after digital story OR L section of chart for what students learned from digital story
4. Since this digital story gives a snipet of each topic or aspect of the rainforest, a culminating activity that students could engage in throughout the unit is researching more in depth about each aspect and present it to the class through their own digital story. For example, a group of students can focus on researching information about the climate and create a digital story on the research they have gathered. Another group can focus on the various animals and plants and present their findings about how these animals and plants adapt to living in the rainforest.

     It would be interesting to know how many students know or have an idea of what digit storytelling is, so I would like to conduct a quick survey to see where students stand. From there, I would show the students different examples of digital stories that others have created and explain that there is a central theme, a collection of images and pictures and finally, narration (telling the story). I think that this project should be done together-teacher/student. Mostly, having the teacher be a facilitator but still teaching students what they need to do in order for them to successful and enjoy creating their digital story. 

     What are some ways or steps you would have your students go about creating a digital storytelling project in your classroom? Or, if you have a classroom, how have you had your students go about creating a digital storytelling? How did you introduce digital storytelling?