VideoQue Pro and Green Screen Techniques for Digital Storytelling

Martha Green discusses a creative approach to digital storytelling with Dr. Ronald Zellner, Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and Coordinator of the Educational Technology Program for the College of Education and Human Development at Texas A&M University.

Preserving the spontaneity of the storyteller is a benefit of working with VideoQue Pro according to Dr. Zellner. The child becomes an active participant in the digital story which can be told in English or in the first language of an ESL student. Listen to the podcast to hear Dr. Zellner describe the use of a green screen and discuss classroom applications for VideoQue Pro in the development of digital stories.

To demonstrate VideoQue Pro, Dr. Zellner collaborated with International graduate student Minga Xu to produce a digital story based on a Chinese storybook called 12 Animals Compete to Be Number One published by Tian Yuan Books, Inc. in 1998. Watch the video and see if you can understand the story as Minga reads it in her native Chinese language.

Often second language learners lack confidence about participating in class activities because of their limited English proficiency. Chris Pim, an ESL specialists with the Portsmouth Ethnic Minority Achievement Service suggests that combining technology with traditional storytelling is an excellent way to meet the needs of second language learners as well as their English speaking peers. In Digital Storytelling for EAL Pupils, Pim talks about a Zulu boy who tells his class a South African warrior tale in his native language. Other students understand much of the story through his animated tones and gestures, and they are also impressed that this boy speaks two languages, something none of them can do. Elizabeth Lannotti describes her successful digital storytelling project with ESL students in How to Make Crab Soup: Digital Storytelling. I hope you will enjoy reading both articles.

Real Super Heroes Use Knowledge to Save Lives

Super heroes continue to capture the imagination of American youth. Why not focus attention on the heroes among us who use knowledge as a tool to change the world instead of some fantasyland set of super powers?

Texas A&M agricultural researcher Sam Goff cited Dr. Norman Borlaug as a real hero who used agricultural expertise to increase grain yield to feed people in areas of the world where many were starving.

Listen to the podcast to hear Sam Goff discuss current issues in agricultural research in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Dr. Norman Borlaug, Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture is credited with saving more lives than any other person who has ever lived through his breakthrough agricultural research often referred to at the Green Revolution. Now I call that a super incredible feat!

Dr. Borlaug’s research lead to the development of new varieties of rice, wheat and maize that allowed for increased levels of production in the tropics and saved many people from starvation in Asia, India and Africa. In December 2006, Dr. Borlaug received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor, our nation’s highest civilian honor. He was also honored with the Nobel Prize in Agriculture in 1970.

Use these links to learn about Dr. Borlaug and his research.

• Biotechnology and the Green Revolution

• Congressional Gold Medal of Honor

• Sasakawa African Association

• The Borlaug Institute at Texas A&M