Document Type

Article

Department/Program

Education

Publication Date

2007

Journal

Social Studies and the Young Learner

Volume

19

Issue

4

First Page

17

Last Page

20

Abstract

Broadly defined, digital moviemaking integrates a variety of media (images, sound, text, video, narration) to communicate with an audience. There is near-ubiquitous access to the necessary software (MovieMaker and iMovie are bundled free with their respective operating systems) and hardware (computers with Internet access, digital cameras, etc.). This easy access, along with the open-ended nature of digital movies, presents powerful opportunities to design student-centered, inquiry-based history projects. Engaging students as digital directors can not only help them develop historical questions and select and evaluate sources relevant to those questions, but can frame (literally and figuratively) and present historical interpretations. In this article, the authors discuss how they examined the impact of this kind of experience on children's historical thinking and learning through a digital moviemaking project in a fifth grade social studies classroom. In this project, much of the content learning and narrative construction took place prior to working with the technology. On the other hand, the technology did seem to shape students' use of sources in interesting ways. One unanticipated outcome of this project was that all the students in the class were able to participate in meaningful ways. Lessons learned during the implementation of this project, challenges for the educator, and concerns that surfaced along the way are also discussed.

Keywords

Grade 5, Internet, Educational Technology, History Instruction, Social Studies, Historical Interpretation, Hypermedia, Technology Integration, Documentaries, Program Implementation, Formative Evaluation

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