Module 2: Digital Storytime

For our class’ second module, we had to create a Digital Story with Wevideo.com. This assignment required us to choose an Illinois Teaching Standard and connect it to our lives in the form of a story. The standard I chose was SS.G.2.3: Compare how people modify and adapt to the environment and culture in our community to other places. I connected this standard to my personal life by talking about living in Spain and Chicago. As I revealed how my identity was shaped by both of their cultures, I also explained how parts of those cultures came to be. For example, I mentioned that I am unable to speak Spanish fluently because my family moved between cities that speak different languages. The two cities we lived in were Barcelona and Madrid. Since Barcelona is located in an autonomous community, it has a different official language than the majority of Spain. Therefore, its official language is Catalan while most of the rest of Spain has Castilian/Spanish as their official language.

We were also required to present our story with narration, fitting music, photos, and sound effects. Since I do not like recording myself talking, completing the narration portion required a lot of effort for me. As for finding music, photos, and sound effects to fit my story, it was a little more difficult than I thought it would be. First, I had to search many areas to pick the right pictures for my video. Placing transitions between them was also hard because the program is kind of finicky with that feature. Choosing music was also hard because I needed to make sure that they matched the mood of my narration and that they would cover a good portion of my video, since we are only allowed to use 30% of the full track. Another difficulty I had with the music was adjusting its volume because the program was also finicky with the adjustment markers. Finally, placing sound effects was a little difficult because I was trying to make them not sound like unnecessary distractions in the middle of the video. Despite all the hard tasks and the large amount of time that this assignment took, however, I enjoyed creating my Digital Story because it allowed me to look back on my time in Spain. If you would like to see my completed project,  then click here.