Emma VanBuskirk

For my DST project, I am going to share a personal story/narrative as a tribute to my late grandfather and how he impacted my life. My grandfather was a great math teacher and was a major influence in my decision to go into education for my career. Not only did he make me realize I have a passion for teaching, but he also taught me so many valuable life lessons that I will forever be thankful for. From him, I learned to be patient, kind, and how to encourage the importance of lifelong learning. I want to share what an amazing person he was to others by creating this story in his honor. I am the person and teacher I am today because of my grandfather. The purpose I want my story to have is the lasting impact educators can have on people. I hope this story makes readers think back on educators or other influential people in their lives and remember all they have learned from that person.  Using Ohler’s (2023) framework, I will include the following story elements: Characters- My ...

     This week, I decided to take a deeper look into “Welcome to Pine Point,” created by the National Film Board of Canada in 2011. Pine Point was a mining town that, when shut down, was completely diminished and no longer exists. This digital story uses a mix of many different media, such as photographs, videos, narration, special effects, and features within the interactive “book”. The author uses an interactive scrapbook-like digital story to really engage the readers and make them feel like part of the story. Readers can flip through the pages of the scrapbook, and within each page, there is another interactive feature, such as pictures to click through that go along with the text on the page. Between the photos, videos, sound effects, and narration, you feel like you are really in Pine Point. This was one of the neatest digital storytelling projects I have seen so far in this course, and I hope to add some of these features to my own DST project.     ...

My name is Emma VanBuskirk, and I am a 4th-grade teacher at a small rural elementary school in Illinois. I teach all subject areas, but I enjoy teaching math the most. This August, I began my second year, and it has been going fantastically! I graduated from McKendree University with a Bachelor's degree in Elementary Education in 2024. I come from a family full of teachers, so choosing teaching as my career path felt like it was meant to be. I am very passionate about building strong relationships with my students to help build a sense of community within the classroom. I believe that students should have ownership of their education to help them grow and become responsible individuals. My teaching philosophy reflects this by running a student-centered learning classroom. I am currently working on my Master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.  After taking some time to think about possible ideas for my story, I am thinking about wri...