In addition to suggesting specific websites, the author also offers tips for creating a book trailer that will maintain audience attention.  Her first tip is to not go overboard: simple is better.  It is really easy to get carried away and make a trailer that is 10 minutes long, but you will lose your viewer after 3 minutes, so you need to keep the length down to 3 minutes or less.  In addition, she suggests keeping your special effects to a minimum: too many will cause confusion for the audience.  Plus, she suggests that you view numerous book trailers posted online so that you can see for yourself what makes a book trailer successful or not. 
Now that we have all of the above tips, we are ready to begin planning our own book trailer.  Because it is a book trailer, the author suggests that students take notes before even starting the trailer and find quotes that they want to make sure and use in their trailer.  Once students have identified everything they want to incorporate in their book trailer, then they are probably going to have to cull some of the information in order to make the trailer succinct.  Students are also going to have to decide on whether to tell their story in first or third person.  If two characters are speaking in your book trailer, then use different fonts to convey their voices.  The author also suggests that you limit the amount of text in your trailer and let your images tell the story.  The author's final, and most important piece of advice is to "never reveal the ending of the book".
This article and the suggestions within it connect to my work as a teacher because I am always looking for new and creative ways for my students to showcase their learning, as well as their growth as a learner.  In addition, having my students work in groups allows them to work on various skills, including collaborating with others, improving their social skills, and learning how to compromise and problem solve.  Plus, all the school districts that I have worked for are using technology more and more, so this helps me to utilize technology in my classroom and expose my students to several important concepts, including the need to follow copyright laws and how to be able to comply with copyright laws while on the internet and when including images or music in your presentation.

In addition, this article claims that digital images help to bridge the gaps in writing.  Digital storytelling provides an entry point for struggling writers to find their own voice within their own stories no matter what genre they choose to write in.  Digital storytelling allows anyone to create their own documentary to tell their own unique story.  This ability to be the center of the story could be a very powerful motivator for students to write and help them to overcome their fear of writing.  

Another benefit of digital storytelling is the ability for students to visually communicate meaning.  Digital images can serve as a stepping stone to make reading and writing more relevant to students.  Digital editing tools allow students to read and write in the digital world.  Plus, teachers can use this medium to fuse images with words and bridge any barriers students have to learning, including helping English language learners, or Special needs students to process the written word and showcase their understanding with pictures and images. 

There are many positive benefits of using digital storytelling in the English language classroom.  In telling their own stories, students were emboldened to use their experience and compare it to the stories of the authors that they read.  This allowed students to see that their stories were unique in their own way, but also had commonalities with others; thus, they were not alone in their experiences.  Pairing stories with digital images provided students with a way to get into writing that they hadn't had before which helped to motivate these struggling students.  Storyboarding for this project required students to use concise language, make sure transitions were effective, and add voice to their stories, as well as to rewrite and revise their work. 

I can see this project working very well in my classroom.  Many of my students did not consider themselves readers, and most of my students were very reluctant to write: so anything that gets them to do both is a method worth trying.  Plus, students seem to come alive when they are allowed to use technology to create their own project.

Digital storytelling has implications for teachers in all content areas.  Helping students to make connections between curriculum content and their lives helps students to find meaning and value from their classes. As a student's appreciation for the knowledge being presented to them goes up, their retention of the material as well as their motivation to attend to their studies goes up. Since the current generation has grown up in a digital world, it only makes sense for educators to capitalize on this and use any and all tools of technology to improve student learning.

Learning to teach with digital videos can be challenging and create other issues in the classroom. In order to use digital storytelling effectively, teachers must be able to have effective samples to view and be able to collaborate with others in order to get support and feedback. Then there are the challenges of actually getting the students to learn the tools necessary to create their own digital storyboard. While many students consider themselves computer literate, I had many students that couldn't perform the tasks necessary to create something online without massive amounts of help. So, while there are many benefits to using digital storytelling in the classroom, using it can be very time consuming, both for the teacher and for the student. Another concern that educators need to address is whether our students have the tools necessary to benefit equally from our digital presentation.

I think that using digital storytelling in the classroom is a brilliant idea that I want to incorporate into my classroom someday. I am very excited to try and use this new form of creative expression in my classroom; however, the drawbacks to using it in my classroom might be enough to get me to not use it. I would like to use it as a way for my students to showcase their knowledge of a novel we have studied by producing a product that shows deep and mindful interactions with a story.

For teacher's, there are several benefits of using digital storytelling in the classroom. First, it can help teachers save effort because digital storytelling encourages students to participate in class discussions which makes content more understandable for the students. Second, digital storytelling helps teachers save time by allowing them to present information in a different way in the shortest amount of time. In addition, digital storytelling promotes student collaboration because they have to work together to create one story. 

On the other hand, students benefit greatly from creating their own digital story. In order to create their own story, students must research the topic, look for pictures that represent the story, plan out their storyboard, record their voice, choose a point of view, etc. The process of creating their own digital story helps students to develop their communication and problem-solving skills, provide opportunities for students to collaborate, enhance their knowledge and improve their academic skills. Plus, working together encourages students to express their opinions and learn how to resolves differences effectively. Digital storytelling's greatest benefit to students is the improvement of their higher order thinking skills because students had to research the topic, evaluate the information, and create a digital story that explains their learning. A further benefit to students is all of the technological skills they have gained from creating their digital story using the different software available online along with the tools incorporated within these software programs.

I find the information in this article helpful because it gives me numerous ways to justify the use of digital storytelling in my classroom because it provides me with evidence that I can use to convince my principal, my fellow teachers, my students and their parents that digital storytelling is relevant to college and the world, not just my classroom. Furthermore, digital storytelling teaches my students all of the skills necessary for them to be successful in the 21^st Century. 

This is a "movie trailer"� for the book, The Color of Water. Of course, the book was never made into a movie. Many teachers have made the creation of a movie trailer into a class assignment. This particular movie trailer incorporates sensory information by utilizing numerous historical pictures that scroll to the soundtrack of Whitney Houston's song "I Will Always Love You". Superimposed upon these pictures are text messages to help the viewer understand what is being represented. This adds to the viewers experience by helping them to visualize the people, the places, and the historical times in which this story takes place.  I would use this and other movie trailers as examples of what my students could do in their own movie trailer for this novel.

 I like this website because it allows you to add your own personal pictures and edit them, if you want. Plus, with their Designer Toolset, you can add customized graphic designs. You can also add text on top of the pictures and invitations and other cards for birthdays, Mother's Day, Father's Day, etc. I also like the fact that I can explore this website without having to create an account. One thing I didn't like is the fact that I couldn't get the program to change my font color. Since it's a collage maker, I can see many opportunities for my students to use this in my class. One idea that I've had is for students to use the card function to create a mini-resume for a character. On the front, the student would use pictures of the candidate. Then on the back, the student would list the candidate's qualifications.

I think there are many benefits that the internet can add to the classroom. One of the biggest benefits I see to using the internet for classrooms is the student’s ability to access the classroom 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means that if the student is absent, he or she doesn’t have to wait until their return to class in order to get their makeup work. This “all access pass”, so to speak, also applies to the teacher. Not only can the teacher grade papers whenever they have the time, they can allow students to turn assignments in at any time, as well. The teacher can make assignments due by 11:59 pm on Friday, January 5, 2018 if he wants too. Teachers can post their assignments on their website and students can access them whenever they want. So, if students lose the assignment they can find a copy of it on the class website and they no longer have to wait to get to class to get a new paper.  The internet is also a great tool for keeping students and parents apprised of the students grades, missing assignment, and other school related information, such as school emergencies or closures. Another benefit for teachers would be that when students turn in an assignment, the computer could be programmed to grade it and put that grade in the grade book. Not having to grade as many papers would be very helpful to most teachers. 

Despite the many benefits, the internet has many challenges, or drawbacks, that come with it. The biggest drawback I see is the student’s ability to “wander off” and just be playing on the internet instead of being productive. Another huge drawback is the student’s ability to bully others while online. This behavior seeps into the classroom atmosphere, contaminates it with its negativity and leaches the classroom of the cooperative nature that classrooms need to be successful. 

Then, of course, is the issue of some teachers using technology to advance student learning while other teachers avoid using the internet or technology in their classrooms because of their fear of the internet and technology. While I am one of those teachers who is afraid of using technology in the classroom at this time, I am committed to learning all that I can in an effort to be able to help my students function in the world that they live in today and tomorrow.

So far, I think my philosophy of educational technology has been mostly reinforced. I still believe that using technology in the classroom is a great idea and I am still reluctant to use it, but I am more committed to learning about the different technologies available, how to incorporate them into my lesson plans, and giving my students more autonomy and ownership for their own learning. Learning how to use the different educational platforms has been reinforced, not only by this class and its online forum, but also by the schools that I currently work for and their increasing use of technology in the classroom. I am really eager to learn how to use Canvas or another educational platform from an educator’s perspective. This would be a class that I would be willing to pay for.

As an extension of the above educational philosophy, I am very concerned about my students and their lack of effort in the classroom. Many of my students claim that they are bored in the classroom and don’t see the point of going to school. Given all of the high stakes testing and the focus on curriculum that teaches to the test, I can’t blame students for being frustrated with the system yet unable to change it. Thus, one teaching idea that I am very eager to explore in my classroom is the Multi-genre Research Paper. Even though it is considered a research paper, it isn’t the traditional research paper with 5 paragraphs and parenthetical documentation. Thus, I think my students would really enjoy this project because it would allow them to pick any topic to research and then create, using any of the technology programs I found while in this class, to create a “research paper” for their topic. With this project, students have more autonomy and control over the actual paper they create and I can see this paper being one of the changes that students need to bring them back into the educational fold and make learning fun and interesting again. Here is a link to an example of a multi-genre research paper: http://www.users.miamioh.edu/romanots/pdf/bloodandbravery.pdf