Reflection for Week 5

It is hard to believe that we ending our 5th week of this course-how time flies!!

Up to this time, I had no idea how Digital Storygtelling is making an impact on education. When we were first introduced to this aspect of technology a few years ago, I thought it was merely geared for an informative purpose. However, after a few years, I am now glad that Dr. Robin introduced this to us in our "Integrating Technology into the Curriculum" course.

After our F2F yesterday, I now feel more comfortable with the concept of DS and look forward to getting started with our final project. Also, the review of Photostory was also very helpful. Luckily, the night before I had reviewed the link Leon had submitted on our discussion board of the YouTube "Photostory" which helped prepare me for our class. The discussion of what our roles would play in the final project now gives me a better sense of what I need to work on, and review to help make our website "star" quality. (The Oscars Red Carpet is on, as I am typing away).

Review

The article I read was quite interesting to me because it showed how a dental school in South Carolina is using digital storytelling in their dental education. The article is posted on their online newletter:
Medical University of South Carolina
THE CATALYST
"CDM iMovie competition spices up creativity"
by Cindy Abole
http://www.musc.edu/catalyst/archive/2002/co6-28movie.htm

What I found intriguing about this article is how their Dental Informatics Professor's idea prompted them to not only use technology but their creativity. This project enabled them to see how their future profession of dentisry could be referred to as a visual art.

I remember when I first started this graduate program I thought a lot of the technology courses would not be applicable to me in the future; however, because there were part of the curriculum I had to do it. This article is a excellent example of illustrating to me how technology is making its way into dental education.

Reflection

My reflection on the first two weeks of this course is "wow"- there is so much in technology for educational purposes. When I first was introduced to DS almost two years ago, I thought this is something that I will look into for either professional or personal uses. However, due to time constraints of work, graduate school, and other personal obligations, I have not been able to go back to DS. I am looking forward to working with DS again, and learning more of how it can be beneficial in my career. I will say I am feeling a little intimidated of some of the students in the course because of their advanced knowledge of technology. As stated before, as a clinician, I do not deal much with technology but I do realize this is a big part of the future of education. I look forward to seeing what this course will have to offer and becoming reacquainted with DS.

Comment: I had no idea how many websites there are on DS. I would have liked to see a little more in dentistry but I realize it will come. Especially, for the profession of dental hygiene.

On a side note, I am not sure what it is that we are going to expected to do for our project(s), so Dr. Robin could you either send me an email if I am the only one not quite grasping the future content of this course. As of now, my understanding is we will work on the website, but my question is are we going to be creating a DS?