Details of the course
We invite you to participate in the free online course entitled ‘Digital Storytelling for the African Storybook Project 2014’ on offer from SchoolNetSA and the African Storybook Project team from Saide. This course is offered to teachers and educators from South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Lesotho. This will be a five week free, online course held during the third term 2014, from 21st July – August 23rd 2014. It is a cross device course ie. PC, iPad, Android tablet, Apple computer, Windows phone etc. The course will be run via a blog for the course materials and a Facebook group for the interaction. Moderators on the course are Fiona Beal from Schoolnet and Lorato Trek from Saide.
Aims
*to introduce you to online digital storytelling and show how it can enrich both you and your learners.
*to take you through the simple steps for creating and publishing an online story suitable for a Grade 1-3 learner so that you can duplicate the process with your class if you have a class.
*to encourage creating stories in mother tongue
*to ask you to consider donating your created stories suitable for Grades 1-3 readers for possible selection for the African Storybook Project website (http://africanstorybook.org/) for the children of Africa to read, translate and use. Find out more about this project by reading this post on the SchoolNet blog.
The proposed outline
Week 1: Introducing digital storytelling
During the first week of the course, participants will learn about digital storytelling and very straightforward licensing methods for online creations. The free Creative Commons licensing a wonderful way to share stories on the web.
The webinar presentation: ‘‘Introduce digital storytelling in your classroom’’
Week 2: What makes a good story for a learner in the early grades
During the second week we will become familiar with the African Storybook website and what it offers. We'll consider what the African Storybook team is looking for in a story i.e. length, reading levels ideas etc. and talk about what children need when they are learning to read.
The webinar presentation: ‘How to use the African Storybook Project website in your classroom’
Week 3: Finding Inspiration for your story
During the third week of the course, participants will learn about the different methods of creating a story, and practise writing a story offline. We'll look at story starter ideas and consider ways to structure a story
The webinar presentation ‘It's time to write our stories’
Week 4: Adding your story to a suitable presentation template and discovering ways of illustrating your story
During the fourth week of the course, participants will be introduced to using a presentation application such as PowerPoint or similar (depending on the device being used) for their digital writing. We'll consider different ways of illustrating a story and will start on the illustrations for your story. We'll discover how to add these illustrations to our story presentation application.
The webinar presentation: ‘Illustrating your story and adding it to PowerPoint (or similar)’
Week 5: Converting your digital story to a video (optional)
In the final week participants will be given the option of adding different elements to their stories such as narration and music. We will look at ways of converting the story to a video and posting it online.
The webinar presentation: 'Convert your story to a video and publish your digital creation online'
Webinars and certificates
This course is supported by 'how to' webinars and offers a Certificate of Completion from SchoolNet and the African Storybook Project if certain requirements are met.
Further information
*It is proposed that stories are written in the mother tongue and that an English version is also submitted where necessary via a word processing document.
*With regard to the devices selected (ie. iPad, PC, Android tablet, Apple device or Windows phone),we will forward you further information after sign-up.
*We plan to run the interaction part of the course from a closed Facebook group so if you do not belong to Facebook we encourage you to join. If you are not keen to become a regular Facebook user, all it requires is that yoy join Facebook and keep your profie very private and unused if desired - but joining with a profile name will enable you to easily access the group page.
You are welcome to contact the moderators with any further queries (fiona@schoolnet.org.za and loratot@saide.org.za). It will be great having you on board!
