During the 2008-2009 school year, Forsyth has been prototyping a model for whole school inquiry-based learning with over 2,400 students in grades K-8. The project is called Stepping up Thinking and Academic Rigor for Students (S.T.A.R.S.). Jill Hobson, Director of Instructional Technology, says, "S.T.A.R.S. is about inspiring and empowering students to become joyful learners who problem-solve creatively and exceed all expectations." All teachers and students at Shiloh Point Elementary and Piney Grove Middle Schools are participating in this student-centered inquiry work as part of developing a sustainable culture of curiosity that rehearses both basic skills and higher-order thinking. Bernajean Porter, internationally recognized speaker and author, has served as the lead consultant throughout the year.

"netTrekker has been a critical part of our toolkit," Ms. Hobson states. Students search the thousands of netTrekker resources to gather information in order to answer their essential guiding question. The feature called My Portfolio is used to save resources for revisiting later. When we entered the media-making phase, the students used the image search feature to find appropriate images to illustrate their storytelling."

You can learn more about Digital Storytelling at Jill Hobson's NECC 2009 Workshop: Digital Storytelling: The Tools to Create the Magic.

"It's been a big learning year for all of us, filled with many stories of success," adds Hobson. "Using Porter's Seven Steps to Media Making has been an essential component of the process that focused our coaching with students on becoming meaning-makers BEFORE developing their skills as media-makers."

About Bernajean Porter

AKA writer, speech and debate coach, inventor, auntie, teacher of possibilities, media maker, futurist, master of survival techniques when working with adolescents, professional speaker, technology consultant, teacher of teachers, long-term technology user, promoter of anything that increases joy, spirit and outrageous possibilities in all aspects of life for kids and adults and now... a digital storytelling guide. Learn more at www.digitales.us.