Digital Storytelling Week 1 Blog

 Hello,

    My name is Trent Fry and I am a special education teacher in Columbus Ohio. I am a mild/moderate intervention specialist for 11th and 12th graders at an inner-city high school right in the heart in Columbus. I am originally from Oklahoma, and got my undergraduate at the University of Oklahoma. I started my teaching career in Oregon as a high school teacher, and then spent a year doing online teaching in Colorado. I have taught at schools with very diverse demographics in terms of ethnicity and socioeconomic status. 

    I have spent most of the week thinking a lot about what I want to write my digital story on. I thought about writing about my parents and how they inspired me to be an educator as they were educators themselves. I considered telling the story of how teaching at different types of schools has grown me as a teacher. I think I have settled on a question that I think about on a daily basis with my students at my current school. How are they supposed to learn today. The compounding factors of things going on at home and at school make it hard for me, as an adult, to stay regulated. I cannot imagine trying to learn in that environment at times. A lot of my kids have great families and academic work ethics. Regardless of this, the things going on around them can make it really difficult. 

    I teach an english 12 class and I think this would be a good thing for them to expose them to more and more modes of media. As a special educator, writing essays is obviously the worst way for them to express themselves. They may have a disability that effects their writing, but that doesn't mean it effects their ability to express themselves. They often have lots of great ideas, that they struggle to put into effective writing. I think to do this assignment effectively, it would have to come after exposing my students to different modes of expression. My school doesn't have one to one technology, which means their exposure to different things can be low. However, with it being a small class, I have enough for each of them each day. I think my goal would be to sprinkle in the different media methods throughout smaller assignments so they can make up their mind on which type of media they would want to tell there story with.

    The reading that resonated with me the most was the Staley and Freeman research from 2017. Growing up in a school a lot like the one in this research, I felt a connection to it. It made me think and realize just how similar this school, my alma mater, and the school I currently teach in are. Staley and Freeman specifically reference students as "non-university bound"(2017).  I think that as students get farther into high school, thinking this is the end of your education can often diminish ones drive. I think an assignment like the one I am considering doing is one that would inspire some personal connection to not necessarily look forward to their education, but too look back and summarize it for themselves.

References:

Staley, B., & Freeman, L. A. (2017). Digital storytelling as student-centred pedagogy: Empowering high school students to frame their futures. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 12(1), 1–17.