CEdu 530 - Blog Entry 1

Our first class was pretty exciting for me.  I've never taken an online course before, so I'm glad it was gentle.  I consider myself a fairly technology minded person, so the concepts and functions came pretty easy for me.  For that I am grateful.

I also find it (perhaps ironic isn't the appropriate word, but...) coincidentally interesting that we are taking a class in Digital Storytelling that, among other things, shows us how to present better multimedia presentations with a better multimedia presentation.

The assignment to take a picture every day is harder to accomplish than I thought.  I constantly have to remind myself to take pictures...and then upload them!  In what has become a go-go-go life for myself, it's hard to take that time to do the little things like that.  And I enjoy taking photographs, too.

What I think I'm looking forward to most is to apply digital storytelling to what I already do with storytelling.  I have told and continue to tell stories to students in the way that some teachers give students treats or gold stars.  And these stories are anecdotes from my life that are both amusing and lesson-imparting.  Having worked with school-aged children for 10+ years and having an interesting childhood provides tons of true material that, with a bit of embellishment and the dramatic telling of it, entertains kids ad finatum.  I can't wait to try and turn one of my stories into a digital one.  Maybe I'll tell the "Carrot" story, or the "Michael Jackson Bullying" story.  The possibilities are endless!