Attracting Minorities to Geosciences Through Involved Digital Story Telling
The Teachers Workshop

The teachers went through two separate workshops. In the first workshop they learned about the elements of digital story telling and in the second they covered the geoscience content.

Training on Digital Story Telling

Training on digital story telling involved two dedicated sessions with project Co-PI, Jason Ohler. In the first session held on January 21, 2008 in Fairbanks, the participants learned:
  • What is digital story telling and how it can be used to enhance learning and literacy in general.
  • What are the elements of a good story and how to create compelling stories, regardless of the media used.
  • How to combine content (in this case geoscience content) within stories.
  • Strategies for classroom implementation.
  • How to assess digital stories and new media narrative projects
The second session conducted on February 21, 2008 involved Jason and a graduate student working individually with the teachers to train them on the technology and techniques of digital storytelling. Teachers learned how to:
  • Use moviemaker, an off-the-shelf software package to create movies.
  • Record speech to serve as a voice over narration for the movie.
  • Import photos and scanned drawings and graphics into moviemaker.
  • Synchronize background images and recorded narration.
  • Add animations, music, text and compile and export final movie.
Teachers working with Jason Ohler to learn MovieMaker
Teachers learning voice over narration

Geoscience Content Workshop

The geoscience workshop was conducted at the University of Alaska Fairbanks on March 6, 2008. It was attended by the participant teachers, native elders, scientists and subject experts on the topics of permafrost and forest fires, coming from various different agencies. The workshop included technincal presntations, panel discussions, and round-table brainstorming sessions to strategize ways to effectively introduce geoscience content in the classroom.