Digital Storytelling Class Project

Let me start by saying that at first, I thought digital storytelling might be impossible with Third Graders. The time it would take to teach them how to do the research for a topic, organize their story, and then work on their final presentation would take weeks. Then it occured to me that they already know how to do this, just not on a huge professional scale. They know how to use a program called Pixie which has as many features as an adult software program, it is just made for kids. As far as the research, why not use information that we are gathering as a class? So, my idea for a project that I could implement with my class is to have the kids make a digital story about each region of the United States. We are learning about the regions in Social Studies so they already know some basic facts, but this would allow them to apply what they have learned already in class. They could also choose to research something that may have interested them in that specific region. This project would use Bloom's skills of: Analysis- arranging their ideas; Application- making connections with what we learned about it class; and Comprehension, summarizing what they learned in their own words. I think that doing this project with Pixie, the kids are learning compuer skills that be translated to more difficult programs as they go along in their school careers.