My Digital Story

My digital story is all about me finding out I was going to be a mother for the first time. I did not have a stereotypical response; I didn't jump up and down with joy. No, I cried and was terrified. But with the love and support of my husband, we fixed our situation to prepare to be parents. My story ends with me showing that adding children to your lives does not mean that your life is over. Adding a child to our lives meant that our lives had just begun.

At first, I thought my story was just that, a story. I didn't think it could be used to do any of things mentioned. But I began to think about my audience, young mothers. My story could provide support young girls who became pregnant and were scared or nervous. Too often, women are expected to be overjoyed at becoming pregnant, but that puts lot of pressure on them. Sometimes, young girls need to know that it is okay to be afraid of becoming a mother. I think my video shows that it is okay to be afraid, but with love and support, everything will turn out good in the end.

Infusing Digital and Media Literacy Across the Curriculum

Chapter 9

"School leaders can inspire educators by helping teachers make large and small steps toward embracing new ideas and instructional practices" (Hobbs 170)

There is really a chain reaction that needs to occur. State board needs to inspire school administrators, schools administrators should be trying to inspire their teachers to push the boundaries, and teachers should be inspiring their students to embrace new ideas and to push themselves.

"When integrating digital and media literacy into the subject areas, it's possible that superficial uses of digital media and technology may trivialize the practice of accessing, analyzing, composing, reflecting, and taking action" (Hobbs 171-172)

I have seen it often that teachers will say they incorporate technology into their classrooms every day, when in reality they use a PowerPoint program to accompany their lecture. We are doing our students any justice if we are not showing them how to truly incorporate technology into their lives.

"A deep commitment to student voice is at the heart of digital and media literacy" (Hobbs 175).

We must not take the voice of our students' away. They have to have the chance to speak their own stories, otherwise digital and media literacy is just another school project.

Tha Danger of a Single Story

Three things I learned about storytelling are that there are examples of every culture somewhere in literature (even if it is sometimes hard to find), there is always more to the story, and there is an awful stereotype of African culture portrayed in most literature.

The most important thing I learned is we must not close our eyes and minds to a single story because each story has so much more, below the surface.

Chapter 6

"Researchers have shown that students who write about topics they choose freely write lengthier essays and their work is more detailed and clearly organized." (Hobbs 109).

As an English major who has student taught in several English classrooms, I would have to most definitely agree with this statement. It goes along with the fact that students will read (even if they are reluctant readers) something that they have interest in. That is why, as a teacher, it is so important to know your students. I do a Reading Interest Inventory every year so that I can better suggest books to my students.

"Readers, viewers, and listeners pay attention to stereotypes because they are familiar" (Hobbs 114).

I think this goes along with what the speaker in the TED Talk was saying about the gentleman reading her book. He was paying attention to African stereotypes, and he noticed that her characters did not follow these stereotypes, so in his mind they were wrong.

"When teachers choose to deconstruct media messages that students consider to be pleasurable, there can be an emotional fallout" (Hobbs 119).

Students just want to be accepted for who they are, with their peers and their teachers. Students cannot wait to tell their teachers about something that happened to them. They always want to ask if the teacher saw this or heard that. When a teacher makes them feel ashamed for something they found pleasure in, whether the teacher does this purposely or not, causes a disconnect and it hurts the students.

Eveyone Around You Has a Story to Tell

I definitely understand and agree with him stressing the importance of hearing a loved one’s story. In my undergraduate, I took a class that required an interview a family member to get an oral family history. I interviewed my dad, and he told me this amazing story about how my grandmother and grandfather met. Without going into too much detail, him riding to a sale on a cow was how the story began. Like the speaker, I had the privilege of getting to know more. I got to learn more about where I truly came from, and that was amazing.

Storyboard for Digital Story