Know Thyself

Inscribed in the Temple of Apollo of Delphi and used countless times by Plato and other philosophers is the phrase “know thyself”. One very useful way to get to know oneself (and others) is by the act of writing.

McLaughlin and Vogt (2000) – “Writing is considerably more than a way to record and demonstrate knowledge. Writing is, most importantly, a way of knowing, a way of working through confusion and fuzzy ideas and moving toward clarification and articulation of knowledge. Writers literally achieve insight in the act of writing; new ideas come as we write and from what we write(p.283)”.

I can relate to both of these quotes because I have never done so much writing in my entire life as I have in just one semester at Bank Street School!! As all students in this school know, the idea of ‘reflection’ through writing is constantly promoted as both a learning and assessment tool. So it was no surprise to read the quote by George Mayo from the article High Tech Reflection Strategies Make Learning Stick by Susie Boss, “blogs naturally put an emphasis on reflection”.

I think the use of blogs are a great way to assess what a student is thinking and what they have learned. It’s also a convenient way to get students to use the Internet and allow an exchange of ideas (especially in a shared blog environment). But to be honest, I don’t think anybody is reinventing the wheel here. Essentially, this is almost the same thing as asking a student to write an essay based off their readings; something that all students have done for perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years? The only difference here is that it is posted in the digital domain and perhaps a little more informal (although it doesn’t have to be).

Digital storytelling, on the other hand, does seem like an innovative and modern way to both show what one knows and to help a teacher understand a students personality, creativity, and thinking. The obvious roadblocks are having the access to the necessary technology and software and finding the time to both teach the students how to use the technology and the time they would need to create a digital story. It seems to me that part of every students’ curriculum in this day in age should be a technology/software class. The key to effective creation of content in a timely manner is knowing how to use various software programs. This would have to include any software that is used to manipulate print, art, music, picture, and video. Assuming that schools can start to incorporate this type of learning in their curriculum (and this is a huge assumption), then the idea of digital storytelling as a tool for learning and assessment will become an everyday common practice.