Thursday, September 20, 2012

Digital Storytelling so far and Plagiarism....

As I finish peer reviewing, I am excited to point out I learned something new about Microsoft Word in quite some time: you can add notes about text as a way to digitally peer edit!  I am impressed by the simplicity of this little tool I hadn't known even existed until now and will definitely use it in the future.  As my class finished their revisions last week we saw how hand writing a draft made it difficult for revisions and editing, a word document and note revisions in this manner would work much better!
My personal experiences thus far in digital storytelling have been positive, as we see more and more tools, I'm sure I will have preferences in the way some work compared to others though.  I see the importance, ease, and relevance of using digital storytelling as well, which makes it that much easier and motivating for me to work with.  I think my experiences teaching writing units make this an easier process as well.  The drafting process was very familiar to me, not much new there, other than making sure my writing lends itself well to visual enhancements down the road.  The digital pre-writing tools really impressed me.  I had seen most of them before, but using it from the perspective of creating a story made it more impactful this time, I am using it this week, in fact, as my students begin their next writing unit!

homeschooling-ideas.com
On to the topic of plagiarism.  I have had many negative experiences with plagiarism in the past, not because I have ever plagiarised or been even accused of it, but the way many high school teachers threatened us is we got caught doing it.  I had never been taught how to truly cite the correct way in middle school, and in high school it seemed like we had mixed messages on how exactly to do it, and it was more or less our responsibility to do it the right way and figure it out on our own.  As I look to my 4th graders, I see a group of 24 kids who I want to make sure don't experience the negativity I did.  Modeling in small pieces at a time how to avoid plagiarism, the exact definition of plagiarism, and how to cite the correct way are things that need to be introduced, and revisited consistently throughout the year to solidify what we discuss.  As we use our mobile computer lab for the first time this week, and I look at my ideas moving forward, my goal first and foremost, is creating writers who don't copy other's works, not just to avoid plagiarism, but because they are writers who are confident enough in their writing abilities to never need to steal the written works of another individual...

No comments:

Post a Comment