In Heart Butte, Montana, students reported on news unfolding right in their backyard using skills they learned at a News Literacy and Digital Storytelling Workshop. Construction crews were installing a new solar array that would supply energy for the school and for community members. Students made a radio feature that included the sound of construction equipment and wind whistling across the hills surrounding the school.
Listen here:
The news literacy and digital storytelling projects were made possible by support from a Hearst Literacy Grant and the Greater Montana Foundation.
Are you interested in hosting a Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital storytelling workshop at your school? Contact us here.
Middle school students in Polson spent the week of their News Literacy and Digital Storytelling Workshop gathering stories about the Flathead Lake monster for a video story. An elder shared the Kootenai story of a lake monster creating Flathead lake. The students visited a judge who believed he saw a monster in the lake. A museum director shared her theory that the monster was actually an ancient fish. A biologist applied his knowledge to the idea of a lake monster.
Watch the video below.
The news literacy and digital storytelling projects were made possible by support from a Hearst Literacy Grant and the Greater Montana Foundation.
Are you interested in hosting a Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital storytelling workshop at your school? Contact us here.
Students at Hays Lodgepole school spent a week this summer navigating fact and fiction on the internet and creating an audio story about a new Nakoda language textbook at a News Literacy and Digital Storytelling Workshop.
Students interviewed the school principal, the illustrator of the book, and their peers. The Nakoda language was once forbidden in schools. Their story captures the joy the community felt when about the opportunity to incorporate the language into the public school curriculum.
Listen to their story below.
The news literacy and digital storytelling projects were made possible by support from a Hearst Literacy Grant and the Greater Montana Foundation.
Are you interested in hosting a Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital storytelling workshop at your school? Contact us here.
Box Elder High School hosted the first Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital Storytelling workshop of the summer.
Box Elder students made two videos about their community. One focused on the new school garden—Bear Nation Garden. They got footage of the garden intern planting seedlings and pulling weeds. Their reporting took them to the local convenience store, the school cafeteria, and the Rocky Boy Health Center. Watch the video here:
Other students pursued a story about the role basketball plays in the Box Elder community. They interviewed basketball star and Box Elder graduate Brandon The Boy. Student reporters shot footage of kids playing basketball on the playground.
A Box Elder student created a digital image for the opening page of the garden video. Another composed the music featured in the videos.
Watch the video here:
The news literacy and digital storytelling projects were made possible by support from a Hearst Literacy Grant and the Greater Montana Foundation.
Are you interested in hosting a Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital storytelling workshop at your school? Contact us here.
In June 2021 the Montana Media Lab hit the road for a series of news literacy and digital storytelling workshops at schools in rural Montana. Teens in Box Elder, Hays-Lodgepole, Polson, and Heart Butte participated. Students at each school told stories about their communities using audio and video skills they learned. Along the way they mastered strategies for identifying disinformation and misinformation on the internet.
Student instructor Hunter Wiggins made a video about the experience. Watch here:
Students used smartphones and iPads to fact check outlandish claims in popular social media posts. They learned how to determine whether a website was trustworthy by laterally reading and checking out the source’s URL.
Students were involved in every facet of producing digital stories. They came up with narrative arcs, decided on interview questions, operated the microphones and cameras, and edited final versions of the stories.
Students instructor Dante Filpula Ankney created this audio story about the summer program. Listen here:
By Dante Filpula Ankney
Do you know a Montana school we should visit for a workshop in the future? Contact us here.
