Case Study 2.3: Digital Storytelling in Argentina

The coordinator of the English department at Instituto San Francisco de Asís, Vicky Saumell, became convinced that something needed to be changed in the way English was taught at this school. So, knowing that the main problem was the reliance on the coursebooks that drove the English curriculum, she decided to leave them aside and design the curriculum with materials of both her and her student's interests. 

As a result, teachers set up a Wiki to be used as a project repository and to keep a record of which projects were done with which class. It was also used to "provide help for teachers, with advice on implementing project-based learning and integrating technology into the curriculum, as well as links to guides and tutorials for Web 2.0 tools and any other supporting material."

One of the projects Vicky carried out is one of "digital storytelling." 17-year-olds chose a number of famous paintings and wrote a narrative that linked the stories together. Afterwards, using Windows Movie Maker, students created an animated slideshow with a soundtrack they chose to go with the images.

Analysis of this project taking TPCK and the SAMR model into account.

TPCK

Content: practise speaking ans writing skills, work and learn with real things (famous paintings.)

Pedagogy: students wrote a narrative linking together all the paintings they chose and created an animated slideshow collaboratively.

Technology: Windows Movie Maker was used in order to create the animated slideshow.

SAMR

Taking into account that this project and the great change in the curriculum would have been inconceivable without technology use, I believe that the teacher and the school stand at the Redefinition level. 

Another project that Vicky carried out consisted in recreating part of Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" using various tools, being Zimmer Twins one of them. If you click on the following link, you'll be able to see their finished work: http://isfa.wikispaces.com/A+Midsummer+Night%C2%B4s+Dream.

If you want help on how to integrate technology in your classes, visit Vicky Saumell's blog, where you can find a source of ideas for projects we teachers can carry out.