EDCU 5333 Week 1 Blog

My name is Jeremy Fitzpatrick, I teach high school English, coach speech and debate and direct plays and musicals. I have been teaching and coaching for over 20 years. While I teach English, I feel my greatest strength is in drama and speech and debate. Through these activities I can work with a variety of students. My colleagues even refer to me more as the drama guy or the speech and debate guy. The activities in my English classroom often have influenced from drama and debate. I am seen as a veteran teacher that like to use technology and am often the person my department looks to when there is new technology or a tech question. 

When I think of stories to develop for the course I am leaning towards the benefits of drama or speech and debate. Almost a how this has changed my life type of story. I am still connected to many students that have benefited from the programs and can reach out to for sound bites and quotations to use. I have a lot of ideas but nothing concrete. I want to get a little further in the class and bounce some ideas off other individuals before I decide on a specific path. I do have my fall play that I am directing that might also make a good story around how to perform Shakespeare for high school. 

As far as the reading go, I haven’t been struck with an ah ha moment. I don’t know if it is my drama background or my love of tech, but the conclusions drawn by the studies I have read are not earth shattering for me. The benefits of creating a third space is a concept that I have learned about in other classes (Davis, A., & Foley, L 2016). Digital storytelling fits nicely with that concept. I think DTS can have great benefits for immigrant and refugee populations in our district. I can see myself working to incorporate some form of DTS in my classes. It can give students confidence to share what they know in a way that does not require them to speak directly in front of others. I also plan on talking to one of my colleagues about a class we used to have in the district called digital storytelling. We have not offered it in a while because of the lack of interest so I would be interested to get his take on why. All the readings are saying that DTS is a great way to engage students but that is not necessarily the case at my school. I want to know what was different about it verses what we are reading. 

I also find it interesting that there are many classifications and types of digital stories. It seems like the types are equal in number to the types of literature. There is also not a concession the specific elements needed in a digital story, there are some that overlap, voice, point of view, multimedia to name a few (Lambert, J. 2010). As I work toward my digital story, and creating assignments for students I will have to take time to develop my own set of criteria that I feel best illustrates and represents me. 

Davis, A., & Foley, L (2016). Digital Storytelling in Handbook of Research on the Societal Impact of Digital Media. 

Lambert, J. (2010) Digital Storytelling Cookbook. Center for Digital Story Telling. Open Education Resource

Comments

  1. MonicaTubbesingOctober 17, 2025 at 11:59 PM

    Jeremy,
    It is a good mix to have English, debate and speech, plays and musical skills with a "drama" strength. I am looking forward to your digital story that illustrates and represents you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ed TechnoOctober 19, 2025 at 5:58 AM

    Hi Jeremy,
    We share a lot in common with regard to interests. I too, am a playwright — arguably my favorite area in undergrad, certainly in English. I feel you about not finding an "a ha! moment" those are rare for some, maybe most. The overlap is real, probably a product of too much segmentation. I find it interesting that being holistic is an often expressed quality, yet what is hammered into the concept of many is "specialization". To me that seems to create people who can perhaps walk, but not chew gum at the same time. I don't say this out of ignorance, I actually know several PhD's who fragment and draw blank eyes when having conversations beyond their jargon or trained conception. I don''t know what the answer is, or if there even is one, but I will offer this — The Trivium and Quadrivium. Everything is an experiment the point is to have fun and not scoff at people who are trying to do something for the world.

    ReplyDelete

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