Middle School – Digital Storytelling Using GarageBand
After attending a workshop for our teachers on Apple’s iLife suite, Mr. Frick, 8th grade Foundations of American Government teacher at Salisbury Middle School, offered his students the opportunity to creatively tell a historical story using GarageBand.
Students created music and lyrics about an American history topic being studied. The original song/lyrics of the final product demonstrated student understanding of basic facts, essential knowledge and in-depth details and examples related to their chosen topic through the medium of music. Storytelling through the use of technology provides students with an alternate choice to traditional essays and posters. Through this project, students had the opportunity to understand, present and explain information while developing media and creativity skills.
Example: George Washington – GarageBand Project (m4a)
As a part of the research process, students have access to many resources including the new American Studies etext. The new etext provides several advantages over the traditional paper textbook.
- tools for talking to the text – highlighting, post it notes for annotating text
- audio – students can listen to the text being read while they read along
- embedded web resources
- interactive components such as flashcards for vocabulary, games, self-check quizzes, the ability to email the teacher and use interactive graphic organizers
(Click to enlarge)
Teaching and Learning 2014 
What a great example of students’ creating an original work to reflect what they have learned! Although in the past we’d been experimenting with these kinds of projects, the infusion of enough technology per student has allowed us to successfully incorporate these media-rich activities into the classroom on a much larger scale.