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.