A Digital Storytelling Rubric

I have been on the student end of using rubrics many, many times. I usually like having a rubric because it tells exactly what is expected from your assignment. It is helpful from student to read the rubric before they start creating their project and then again after they complete it, so they can be sure they didn't miss anything. I thought creating my own was going to be relatively easy, but I did have a few bumps in the road.

I actually created two rubrics for this assignment. One follows the the instructions concerning the number of scoring categories we had to have, the content items and the grading scale. This rubric is an expanded version of the rubric I would use when I actually use this assignment. I only intended the Book Talk videos to be 3-5 minutes long and count for 10 points. Since the Book Talk project is really intended to promote books to fellow students, I do not want it to become a large project that takes weeks to complete.

Creating the basic rubric was easier once I made a list of items I wanted included in the Book Talk. This gave me the content criteria. In order to meet the requirements for our class, I expanded the required elements in 3 categories from 3 items to 5 items and my final category is the appearance of the project.

I am including both rubrics and would welcome comments on either or both examples. I can see the benefits of having a more detailed rubric for a larger more detailed project but for my little projects; I think the 10 point rubric would be just fine.

Book Talk Rubric - 10 Pts





Book Talk Rubric - 100pts

A Simple Book Talk

I really enjoyed creating the storyboards for my digital storytelling example. It gave me hands on experience with what my students are going to aim to create. I am excited to turn my storyboards into an actual Book Talk that can be shown in the library.

I did have a couple concerns as I put it together. I am trying to keep it pretty simple, so students with different levels of technology experience can still participate. The students with more technology skills can use those skills to add different effects to their project. I, also, want the students to promote the book they choose without giving the whole story away. Part of accomplishing that, will be my lesson on giving your audience a small piece of the story that captures their imagination and makes them want to read the book. My concern is I am making it to simple in an effort to not give the story away.

My other concern is the student video portion of the Book Talk. I have designed it so the video and student created visuals will alternate to some degree but I wonder if it will just come across as choppy instead of a smooth presentation.

I would love anyone's comments about these issues.

Creating a Curriculum Page

I have used Wikispaces before, so I wasn't worried about the technical piece of this week's assignment to create a curriculum page. But having never created this type of page before, I wasn't sure where to start. I looked at the links that were provided and came up with an outline of what I wanted to include about the Digital Storytelling Book Talk project. This included the basic instructions of the project, some links to websites that would help my students if they got stuck and what I planned to do with the finished projects. Even though I felt I was just starting with the basics, it still took me a good amount of time to create the home page and the three information pages that link back to the home page. As I worked on my wiki, I started making a list of what kinds of things I would add to this curriculum page. I realized that this would be a great tool to use for my Student Book Club. I would use it to have a Main Page that listed the books we are reading and have sub pages dedicated to each book. On these sub-pages, we could provide information about the author, a short summary of the book, and additional information the club would want potential readers to know. From there, I could create a link to our Book Club wiki from the Media Center's website for everyone to access. I am looking forward to continuing to improve my wiki and find other ways to use it in the Media Center.

If you would like to see how I am doing so far, please check out my wiki on creating Book Talks.

Thanks.
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