:: Monday, April 04, 2005 ::
PROJECT:DIGITAL STORYTELLING
Streetside Stories: 'Tech Tales'
http://www.streetside.org
Principal Artists:
300 San Francisco public middle school students
Funding: U.S. Department of Education's Arts in
Education Model Development and Dissemination Grant
During the Tech Tales workshop, 7th grade students create 1-2 minute digital stories in iMovie using autobiographical stories, drawings and photographs. During the first two weeks of the workshop, the students write their autobiographical story, convert it into a 125-175 word script, create storyboards and choose 3 sound effects. The second two weeks of the workshop, students record their voiceover and edit their digital story. The curriculum is standards based.
The workshops take place during the school day as part of the students'language arts class (45-90 minutes long). During the 2004-05 school year, 300 students in 12 classes and 5 schools will receive the Tech Tales program. The classroom teachers also receive training in how to use digital storytelling in their classroom for future projects. The schools selected to receive Tech Tales have a high percentage of low-income students and reported below average test scores.
At the end of the workshop, each student receives a CD-ROM with all of stories from their class. At the end of the year, each student receives a DVD anthology that includes a quarter of the stories produced by all of the students in the program.