Day 5 and soon we share work with our colleagues, a humbling experience indeed. I’m still abuzz with all the technology crammed into a few days of learning and amazed that we all generated two products in so little time. I can’t say my projects are ready for prime time – I typically need time away from a project and return with fresh eyes – but the learning process was well worth it.

I was struck by a common reaction by myself and my colleagues when we saw the image of ourselves on screen or heard the sound of our voice. We flinched. I wanted to escape to another room, maybe doing something more appealing. Maybe read tax forms. Anything but see and hear myself. But herein lies its usefulness for dance classes.

There’s typically a gap between how students believe themselves to be moving and how one is actually moving. As in writing, there’s a gap between what writers believes is communicated and the actuality of the words. In dance, students often use a mirror, which cranes the head and distorts the movement, or they rely on another’s feedback. In using digital media,students can tape themselves moving and reflect on the discrepancy. They can explore a movement in isolation or an entire sequence. Dance is transient. An assignment capturing a transient moment for extended investigation and reflection could be beneficial.

My concern is still the time required by a digital project. It’s challenging enough to get students, especially those not majoring in dance, to get their bodies moving. How could I organize an assignment to keep focus on embodiment, their fleshy self, not a virtual one? Were this purely a writing class, the pathway between digital versus paper seems clear. My reflections on coming up with a suitable assignment with reasonable expectations continue.

Creating a digital story was just like being a student again — with all the possibilities and pitfalls that entails.

• I was learning how to use new technology, find material to use, and create something worthwhile all at the same time.  I felt the stress of having to create something interesting and meaningful under pressure — and yet making the final product like it was effortless and could be no other way.  I sometimes forget when I am teaching students how to analyze policies, how to use SPSS, and how to write up their arguments that all of this can be very new and foreign to them.  I forget that fluency with any media or language is built over time and with experience.

• Last night I was up at midnight, having written ten different drafts of the script and recorded the audio at least seven times (only to wake up inspired, change the script, and re-record this morning).  My husband came downstairs, laughed at me, and said, “This isn’t even for a grade!”  I realize how much I want something to look perfect (or as close to) when it is public.  I remember too why students sometimes take their grades personally — There is something of ourselves in any creative endeavor.

• I forgot to do my “homework”!  That’s right.  I forgot to post my daily reflection yesterday because I was in such angst about the DST.  And I’m only taking one “course”!  (To make up, Profs. Warren and Scott, this post is longer than typically the case.)

On the other hand, I really enjoyed the creative freedom of the digital story.  As a “scientist,” I am used to be detached and analytical, even when my papers have “my take” in them.  I found it really hard to write the DST script this way.  However, once I was able to “find my voice” and write “from the heart,” I found the process a lot easier, but it was like I had to think and speak in a different way.  I also realized that I could create a two-level story, one told in the spoken narrative and one conveyed through the visual images.  I could be ironic.  I could leave a lot unsaid — and in fact, the story could be more effective that way.

When I was done, I had a great feeling of satisfaction in getting to flex creative muscles that I don’t normally use and to bring forth something so closely tied to me — as a person instead of me the political scientist.

I am still not sure how I will use digital stories for my courses.  I’ll have to think about that some more.  I ask students to use quantitative and qualitative data to analyze social and economic phenomena.  I don’t know that digital stories would be effective for this.  But I also want (and it is often more a wish than an outcome) students to write with an awareness of the human beings behind the data.  I could see digital stories being a powerful medium for building that awareness.