Techlearning blog

Doug Taylor is the superintendent of Gage Public Schools, located in Ellis County, Oklahoma. Ellis County (and the town of Gage) is in extreme western Oklahoma, right on the Texas border just southeast of the Oklahoma panhandle.

This area of Oklahoma has a lot in common with the Texas panhandle and West Texas. Gage is included in Timothy Egan's bestselling book "The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl." I have not been to Gage or Ellis County yet in person, but had a chance to meet Doug this past week as he participated in our three day "Celebrate Oklahoma Voices" workshop in Edmond at the University of Central Oklahoma. We had a wonderfully ecclectic group of educators in our workshop this week: classroom teachers, librarians, university professors, and a school superintendent: Doug Taylor. During the workshop, Doug created the digital story "Town of Gage, Ellis County Oklahoma," which he posted to our "Celebrate Oklahoma Voices" Ning social networking site. In this video, Doug shares some of his ideas about how digital storytelling and the software tools we learned to use in our workshop (Audacity, Switch, PhotoStory) along with portable digital audio recorders and digital cameras can be used to preserve the oral history of his community in western Oklahoma.

Find more videos like this on Celebrate Oklahoma Voices!

It was wonderful to not only get to know Doug and the other participants in our workshop this week, but also be infected by his contagious excitement for helping the students and teachers in his school district learn to become digital storytellers!

The current educational culture in our state, which is focused on state mandated PASS (Priority Academic Student Skills) objectives along with accompanying high-stakes tests, seems to encourage teachers to regard digital storytelling projects like ours as "fluff" because they do not appear to be narrowly tied to those academic standards. As teachers engage in and experience the digital storytelling process, however, most discover the RICH content area and process skill connections which are possible when digital storytelling is used effectively. Digital storytelling is NOT an activity which teachers and principals should postpone till "after the state tests are finished." Digital storytelling can be an intrinsically as well as instrumentally valuable learning activity for students at any time of the academic year. That reality, as well as the fact that aging seniors in our communities need to be asked to share their stories NOW, while they are still with us to recount them, makes a persuasive case for our students and teachers to get involved right away in digital storytelling projects.

Kudos to Doug for not only participating in our workshop, but sharing his enthusiasm for digital literacy, oral history, and the unique stories of his county in western Oklahoma with the rest of our workshop participants. It's a safe bet we're going to hear and see more digital stories from Gage, Oklahoma, in the weeks and months to come.

Our state and nation need MORE educational leaders like Doug Taylor, willing to not only "talk the talk" of support for digital literacy and 21st century skills, but also willing to "walk the walk." Want proof Doug is walking the walk? Take a look at his digital story and leave him a comment. Pay a visit to Gage Public Schools in the next few months. When the educational leader understands the need to engage learners appropriately with digital media through the CREATION of digital media, a door to powerful learning experiences as well as pedagogic changes can open.

I'm thrilled Doug participated in our workshop this week. Let's hope more Oklahoma superintendents follow his exemplary lead!