Storyboarding your Idea / Building a PowerPoint Catholic Distance Learning Network -- March 2007

Dr. Ralph OlligesWebster University

Part 1 of 3

What is a Storyboard?

Our Philosophy of Composition

Photo from America’s Library

For Unity of Effect:Keep it shortWrite with your end in mind

Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

Start with a Meaningful Activity

• Resolve two things first– What is the point or

purpose of my lesson?

– What kinds of exploratory questions can I ask a student encountering it for the first time?

• Develop the activityMake use of popular search engines in the framing of your activity. There is a great deal of material already online concerning your topic. Seeif any of it can be modified for your purposes before you invest time and energy in creating something new.

Discuss the Activity

Break the idea into parts– What are the component

parts concerning it? (Each is one slide.)

– What are the supporting ideas for each of the component parts? (All supporting ideas go on the same slide with the component part they support.)

– What are the develop-mental ideas for each of the supporting ideas?(Quotes, narrative examples, and such can be moved to the audio narration.)

Every idea is a system with componentparts. Each part will have its own complexities that support its role within the greater system. All you’re doing isbreaking that down for your learner.

Photo from NASA

Taking Care of the Tangents

• Link to Slideshows that Can Fully Explore Tangents using– PowerPoint Format

– Web Format

– Producer FormatPhoto from Illinois.gov

Conclude the Activity

Explain the idea in context with the environment of which it is a part– What is the significance of

your point or purpose?

– What is the impact of that idea on the field?

– What is the applicable value that can be derived from this explanation? The fundamental principle that our ends

are bound up in our origins is at play in this kind of project design because we started with our end in mind.

Photo from Berkeley Lab

The Impact on You

What you Have– A learning module that any

student can use as a means by which to interact with the course materials

– A slideshow that you can share with colleagues within your discipline for their own use or with colleagues outside your discipline for cross-referencing

Photo from Wikipedia.com

The Match-Cut Transition in StanleyKubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Our tools build on themselves.

The Impact on your Discipline

Where you’re Heading– An entire collection of learning modules that will provide

students with a choice-making opportunity

– A slideshow database to which your colleagues contribute in the effort to develop resources for one another.

Photo from Nasa