Digital Story Telling Analysis

My digital story project is based on Indian Education for All that is required in all schools in Montana.  The primary focus of the Digital Story is to tell a Oral History Story from the Crow Nation.  This lesson could be used for both IEFA and Social Studies in the classroom environment.

The lesson would satisfy several Common Core Standards in the Social Studies curriculum.  Content Standard # 1 states that students access, synthesize, and evaluate information to communicate and apply social studies knowledge to real world situations.  Oral histories are a very important part of history and being able to relate these to situations still affecting the Crow nation is crucial to understanding about their culture.  Content Standard 3—Students apply geographic knowledge and skills (e.g., location,place, human/environment interactions, movement, and regions).  The oral histories also will help children to understand the importance of Native Peoples environmental interactions as well as their understanding of geographic knowledge.  Content Standard 4—Students demonstrate an understanding of the effects of time,continuity, and change on historical and future perspectives and relationships.  Oral histories provide us with perspective and relationships that Indians have with time and historical past.  Content Standard 6—Students demonstrate an understanding of the impact of human interaction and cultural diversity on societies. The digital story should help them understand the impact that the cultural difference that the many different Native Nations have on Montana. 

Learning Objective:  The class should be able to recognize, discuss and discover the importance of Oral History for Native peoples.  They should be able to explain and interpret how oral history has shaped history, especially Native Indian History in Montana.

I would be able to incorporate my Digital Story Telling project into the classroom during my Indian Education For All activities.  I find Oral Histories fascinating because many societies base their culture on these stories.  Their economies, family lives and community are driven by the lessons in these stories.  The use of a digital story will allow me to compose a visual relation to the story being told, rather than relying on the students forming their own vision of the story in their imagination.  The use of music and photo's to reiterate important characters, places and events in the story will help to paint a picture that is memorable for the students.  It will also allow me to reach all learner types, rather than just auditory learners.  I think the use of media in conjunction with the spoken word provides more in depth conceptualization of the lessons being taught.