I am a visual and auditory learner. When reading, I need to visualize the content like a movie in my mind to truly understand it. As a first-grade teacher, most of my students are like me and also need to transform textual information into visual or auditory information to comprehend it. Visual aids can also assist in understanding the text. As a second language learner myself (English being my second language), and with my students being the same (Chinese being their second language), animations, pictures, or sketch-note style videos can better help us learn languages. 

I have seen similar sketch-note style videos online, reminiscent of my childhood when teachers would use overhead projectors to read stories to us. There were no smartboards or similar teaching tools back then. I thought it would be time-consuming, but it wasn't! The tool I used is VideoScribe. In my first attempt without experience, I opened all the icons and looked through them, then selected a few tools to start editing. The two challenges I encountered were: 1. Matching the animation speed with the narration was really difficult! It took several tries to find the appropriate pace. 2. I always have to backtrack to see where the connection is not coherent, and if the sequence needs adjusting, just as Berger mentions: "The term stepping back is often used when we talk about questioning —step back and ask why, step back and reconsider—and so forth" (Berger, 2014).

I want to try using this tool to create teaching materials for the American Revolutionary War. Children would surely enjoy animations with Chinese narration! I also want to try presenting stories written by students in an animated format (for older students, they can even do it themselves). It can also serve as flashcards for students to review vocabulary within the animations.