Week 10 Module

A.  After reading Cori More's article on digital social stories, I learned a great deal about these wonderful teaching tools!  I became aware of the reasons why social stories are necessary, how they can be modified for visual/auditory needs, and what skills they can help children improve.  More states that, "intervention is especially important for those students with disabilities who experience difficulties in learning social skills without intervention. Some strategies that have previously been implemented to improve social behavior include peer tutoring, social stories, and digital media."  More believes that digital social stories have a lot of success in teaching social skills because these stories are personalized per student, promote relationships, can be edited by the student and their family, and allow teachers to target culturally appropriate skills/responses.  The interactive creation of digital social stories between the student, family, and teacher is a great aspect of the learning process these stories present, because it allows for customization and specialization for children with various disabilities.  More states that, "the addition of sound allows children with visual impairments or reading difficulties to access the digital social stories independently. The addition of digital pictures supports the needs of visual learners. The text, built on developmentally appropriate vocabulary,
promotes literacy and provides structure to the lesson."  All around, I believe that digital social stories are a great tool to aid children with disabilities in learning social skills and how to thrive in our society.


B.   Prior to this module, I had no idea that digital social stories existed.  I knew of regular social stories, but digital social stories created on PowerPoint or YouTube were a whole new ballgame.  I believe that these stories are a great tool for children with autism to use because it helps them to know how to act/react in a socially acceptable way in various situations and environments.  My experience with creating a digital social story was pretty insane, however.  I have a Mac computer, so I was unable to download PhotoStory 3.  I decided to borrow my mother's computer to create my video, but for some reason I could not upload any photos to PhotoStory 3 unless they were "sample pictures" that came with the computer.  I tried and tried to find different ways to make PhotoStory 3 work, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.  I had given up on PhotoStory 3 at this point, and went back to my Mac and tried to make an iMovie, but that was a hopeless case as well.  Finally, 3 hours later, I gave in and asked my computer-whiz boyfriend for help.  I wrote the story, found the pictures, recorded the narration, and he did all of the technical video-making and YouTube-uploading.  It was an all-day affair, but finally I had something to work with.  Due to all of these complications, I wouldn't recommend making video social stories to someone with little technological knowledge, like myself.

My digital social story about concert etiquette: