Digital storytelling is a way to bring the past and the present together when telling a story. This enables a person to enrich the story they are trying to tell. With digital storytelling a person can use other tools to help bring their story to life. Digital storytelling helps in having a visual for you to look at like google maps. It brings the focus on a specific topic using computer-based images, text,recorded audio narration and video clips.
There are so many ideas that can be used when thinking about VoiceThread in the classroom. Most importantly using Voice Thread in the classroom can allow the students to listen to children around the world comment on what they have created and they can also learn what children from other cultures think. It would also allow students to listen and learn other languages. SlideShare would enable students to also post presentations to peers around the world and to get feedback. Using SlideCasts also helps students to create a site where the students could tell their stories. I will be able to use the three when the students are researching about how sleep affects the way you think and function at school.
In my classroom I would like to use the three by having the students tell the story of themselves on the first day of school. I would also like to use the slideshare and the slidecast to share their stories with students around the world.

Using a variety of internet resources will help my students to better understand how to research their topics of interest. I envision using google blog search in the classroom and teaching the students how to customize their search. They can even begin to get the information sent to them using the google reader. I envision my classroom using the internet to broaden thier understanding of research. The following page will help my students when researching.

This topic on "Boggers Who Help You Teach" addresses the issue that some educators complain about , "there just isn't enough training for teachers on how to use technology in the classroom". Teachers just aren't sure on how to create these lessons that use technology. To some educators technology is scary and a lot of work if you don't know the first thing about the technology. For some administrators it just isn't a priority and they feel that they can't spend the time to train teachers on using the new technology that is out there.
As talked about in this blog (http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/?p=1678), the new and exciting things to learn using technology can't be taught in a workshop but is rather learned through doing and trying in the classroom. It is also learned through talking and creating with other co-workers. You as the teacher is going to have to want to have a learing environment that is rich and exciting inorder for you to want to learn how to use the technology. If you aren't one of those teachers then you are going to find it difficult to learn and even if you did attend workshops, you still would not get it.

The need for inquiry and project-based learning is very important in the classroom because it involves the students in a way that they are able to ask questions so that they better understand the information. The students are actually able to seek out the truth using their five senses. The students are not only sitting and learning about things but they are learning the information and taking part in their learning. Project based learning also lets the students get involved and learn about things that they are interested in learning about.
Inquiry and project based learning is important within my unit plan because the students could really begin questioning "how sleep affects the way they think and function through out their day?". I could also make this a project-based learning assignment by having the students conduct studies about how sleep affects whether we are fatigue or energetic, would our bodies be able to function without sleep, and what kinds of foods would give us energy when we have not had enough sleep. This could open them up to a whole lot of different discussions about sleep and our bodies.