Troubleshooting 

As teachers we always need a back up plan before starting our lessons. This project will take around 3 weeks. This is a complete unit of study with multiple pieces. 

Complications to consider: 

• Students may not be comfortable using a audio tool on the computer. This can be avoided by working with your technology department to provide additional support and classtime to complete the project. Come up with a list of other ways of creating audio stories. 
  
• Time, time, time! This project will take a long time and depending on your students it could take longer. Teachers can assign pieces for homework and this could help with the time spent on each lesson. Be careful not to rush or skip pieces of  the lessons. Each lesson is designed to build on each other. 
• Lack of communication. This project does rely heavily on the responses from other students in other states. If you find the e-pal is not responding, you as the teacher can e-mail the other project teacher and address the situation. You can also reassign the student to a new e-pal or even combine multiple students who are receiving responses. It would be very disappointing for a child not to receive a response from their e-pal. 
• Lack of resources- Back up plan! Does your school have enough technology equipment to support this project? If you do, you are lucky! If not, partnering up students will allow for collaboration and less technology. Of course, you want to partner students well to ensure a final product that is successful. Each piece can be done without laptops, except the e-mailing piece. With permission, students could complete the e-mailing piece at home. The final product does require a computer but again partnering students would require fewer computers. 
• Extension units- Do you have a GT resource teacher? Consider using these as extensions:
  

• • Create posters advertising the digital story projects.  Write a one sentence tag-line for each video.  
  • Create a class website documenting the experience of creating a digital story and post the projects for viewing.
  • Create a manual for other classes that might like to try this project explaining the production steps.
  • Show stories on the announcements or publish on a website
  • Invite parents to join for a viewing party