By Dean Shareski
The El Paso cohort is a new cohort which kicked off in late February. Like every community, it takes time to build trust and relationships in order to get to the real learning. We’re working on it.
One thing I did early on as community leader was to share an exercise I’ve used and adopted from others that helps accomplish a number of things. The six word story exercise helps people to play with visuals and their creativity in a nicely constrained manner. We then share our creations and through that simple act of sharing, learn about each other and learn from each other’s creative juices. Simple, fun but meaningful.
One of our fellows, Sherita Martin asked about using this in a workshop. Not that she needed my permission but she asked and I simply requested she shared how it went. Today she forwarded me this email:
Dean,
As promised, here are some of the comments from teachers who attended the Intro to Digital Storytelling session:
Jodi Anderson said… Yeah!!! A project that the kids are really motivated to complete!
Nicki Deal said… This Rocks!!!!! So Fun!!! I love this and will use it way too much
Rosanna said…This session is fantastic for ELLs! I will definitely include an activity to do this with my students before school is out.
Pat Arnold, Whitaker Librarian said…Thanks Sherita! This is great. So user friendly and easy to use. The potential is a wide open door. I think there are many ways in which I can utilize this tool in the library.
Tamara said…This was a fun session that gave great ideas to use in the classroom. Kids like to write stories and 6 words is no problem.
Jessica Quinn said…I will use this WONDERFUL technique to encourage story writing with students… anything on the computer will work… but it’s best when it’s cool!
Gloria said…Sherita this is a great to the point exercise. I will use it tomorrow. This week we are covering the verbs go and do. I will have my students find a picture and write a 6 word story using the verbs go and do either in the now or the past. Related verbs can be used goes, does, did, went.
aranda said…Thank you it was great.
Bonnie Case said… Thank you Sherita. I will try to use this with my kinder students. It may work great, as some students do not like to write many words. However, I am not sure they can address a photo with six words. I am really excited to try and hopefully will send you some emails.
It’s gratifying to see how ideas spread and grow. Sharing is a core value of PLP.
Dean Shareski
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Dean,
Your sharing made a HUGE impact on many of the teachers out here in West Texas. I was thoroughly pleased with the conversations, smiles, and laughter during the session.
Thanks for sharing!
Sherita
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