Digital Story Telling in Engineering

One of the hardest things to convince my students of in engineering is the importance of keeping a record of their work. They keep and engineering journal for major projects. In that journal, they record the progress of that day and what it is they hope to accomplish next. Students also keep a portfolio where they store pictures and summaries of the work that they do. One project involves a very expensive Lego-like kit. Since these kits belong to the school, it is necessary that the students dismantle their projects when they are done so that the next group can use them. After more than a month of working on these projects, it is somewhat of a sad day when they come down. I already have students take picures of their projects at various stages, upload them to the computer, and make it a part of their project summary. This is effective, but somewhat dry. It would be very interesting for the students to also make a digital story of their project. It would also be a great way to present and sell our program. I plan on trying it next year.