Techszewski

Converting Essay to Digital Story: Lessons Learned

Let me get my ranting out of the way first. I hate Windows. And I hate MovieMaker. I'm getting my Made on a Mac tattoo re-inked this weekend. When it comes to creating multimedia projects on a PC, there are many options, but which ones are any good? I've yet to complete a project with a group of students on the PC that wasn't plagued by freakish glitches with file path names, program freezes, or just general computers behaving badly. In my test run of the program, I had few problems recording my voice over in Audacity, importing my audio and images, syncing everything, adding a title, and exporting the finished movie. But I've done this before. The key difference is that I did this all in one 90 minute long sitting. MovieMaker does something that makes it nearly impossible for students to work on a project over a few class periods. When students opened their projects on their second day, they were met with big red X's in place of their images and audio that they had spend an hour syncing the day before. Most times you can just double-click on the images and reconnect the path. It's misleading when you tell students to import their images and audio because that's not what MovieMaker does. It saves the target source. Why? In iMovie, when you import files becomes part of the project file. You don't have to worry about the file after that. Not with MovieMaker. If you move your images or audio files, you might as well start over. I had switched to MovieMaker from Photostory because it was easier to adjust the length of time an image stays on the screen. Photostory also has that odd path name glitch. Very frustrating because it makes no sense and it's nearly impossible to explain to students. The tech savvy ones figure it out and can work around it, but for the rest of the class they become intensely frustrated and squander valuable editing time dealing with these PC pitfalls.

I just wrapped up a digital storytelling project where students converted an essay they wrote about a country in Africa. Instead of the usual Powerpoint (the only reliable multimedia tool for the PC) to share their work, the teacher wanted to try something new. I created a template to help students see how they could convert their thesis statements to focus questions of a story. The focus question set up a story that would follow one of the following story models: Cause-Effect, Compare-Contrast, Analyze-Persuade, Describe-Conclude. Bernajean Porter puts these types of digital stories in the Beyond Words category. Different from the personal narrative, but still meant to move the audience in some way. That part, writing and creating multimedia projects that do more than just regurtitate facts is the real challenge for students.

I knew this would be challenging for most of the students, but it's an important skill for them to acquire. The sample story I created helped many see what we wanted. Overall, I'm very pleased the with the final projects. I get a sense that they learned much more than just facts about the countries they researched. This project brings my total of student-produced digital stories to around 500. With each project, I learn many new lessons. Aside from my profound dislike of MovieMaker, I'll take much away from this round of digital stories.

Lesson #1 Using a wiki to provide feedback to students during the script writing process is an easy, valuable tool to include. Although only a few students used the wiki, it was really helpful to
them in improving the quality of their scripts. The discussion forum on Wikispaces was simple and effective.

Lesson #2 Students have no idea how to find images for ideas, concepts, emotions, etc. It was fun to peak
over their shoulders as they were punching into Google Images phrases such as "political corruption in Nigeria" or "economic strife." Students need lots of practice in activities like assigning captions to
pictures or finding images for sections of a script. These are the types of short visual and media literacy activities that are essential to developing strong digital storytelling skills.

Lesson #3: No matter how many times you show students how to use the basic components of a program only your top 10% will remember it when it comes time for them to apply what you've shown them (and that 10% probably is tech savvy enough to figure things out on their own). Students still need written instructions on the step-by-step approach to the basic steps like editing and importing images and audio. I probably could have created a short movie that walks them thru the steps, but I'm lazy these days. Next time.

Lesson #4: When editing, students need a mouse and a set of headphones. Looking around the classroom, watching the students all listening to their stories with headphones was a great snap-shot of really engaging project-based learning.

Lesson 5: You always need more time than you planned for. We had 80 minute classes, but it was a tight schedule. They only had two days of work on the computer. Students who tried to download MovieMaker at home only found frustration when the red X's appeared because of the lack of portability of the program.

Lesson 6: Students need to be taught how to name files with descriptors that help identify it. Many students opened MovieMaker, started working then saved their project as "Movie" or "soc studies prj."


I'm fairly certain that for most students this was the first time they've been asked to "tell a story" that moved the audience. Many came close. A few really nailed it. Some still don't know the difference between a story and a report. This takes practice. I think teachers often are reluctant to take on a project like this because the end results can be less than stellar. But this is when teachers need to be reminded that we often ask students to apply many skills repeatedly. Despite being assigned dozens of Powerpoint presentations in their school career, only a third of most classes have students creating engaging and effective presentations. I still remain convinced that a digital storytelling project forces students to develop, practice, and apply the wide range of visual and media literacy skills that will produce truly digitally literate students.

ICTs, Digital Literacy and Digital Storytelling

 

I'm changing my job title from Technology Integration Specialist to ICT Integration Specialist. Maybe then I'll get a chance to demonstrate how technology in educational settings is linked to developing students' digital literacy skills and not a separate set of software skills. Also, maybe then teachers won't confuse me with the person who was hired to fix their computer. ICT Standards have made my job a lot easier. When teachers are presented with a set of standards that emphasize effective communication with technology they often feel that this makes more sense to them than "doing technology for technology's sake." 

When we talk about 21st century skills for our schools, one key strand is digital literacy. While some teachers and administrators see these terms as buzz words that muddle school reform conversations, it can't be denied that technology use is integral to the development of students' current literacy skills. The ICVET website explains that:

Today’s technology driven society also requires digital literacy, which means that an individual can read and write digitally in order to 'access the Internet; find, manage and edit digital information; join in communications; and otherwise engage with an online information and communications network...' (Blackall, L 2005). Digital literacy also includes an ability to 'identify…integrate, evaluate, analyse and synthesize digital resources, construct new knowledge, create media expressions, and communicate with others, in the context of specific life situations, in order to enable constructive social action; and to reflect upon this process' (DigEuLit project, 2006).

According to these definitions, some may say that Facebook has facilitated students' digital literacy skills more than their daily classroom work.  I've spent the last ten years helping students and teachers communicate information in story form using technology. To me, digital storytelling helps develop story literacy, media literacy, and visual literacy. When implementing a digital storytelling project and teachers address the skills associated with these three literacies then we're on the path of developing digitally literate students.

Eliot Eisner wrote in The Kind of Schools We Need that "what we ought to be developing in our schools is not a narrow array of literacy skills limited to a restrictive range of meaning systems, but a spectrum of literacies...to serve as a vision of what our schools should strive to achieve." I'd also include procedural literacy as a component of digital literacy. Students who can use entry-level programming tools, such as Scratch or ALICE are learning a set of skills that transcend manipulating a machine. They are learning the key steps of the iterative design process that will be a part of many 21st century jobs.

I just finished Jason Ohler's new book Digital Storytelling in the Classroom: New Media Pathways to Literacy, Learning, and Creativity. When I was writing my thesis on Supporting Digital Storytelling in Grades 4-12 (Download TB_thesis_2008_edits.doc), I found the earlier draft of this book on his website. Thrilled at the clear language he used and his support of Kieran Egan's storytelling work, I felt his first draft was the best book to date on helping teachers understand digital storytelling in the context of the classroom and within the larger pedagogical domain of "So, why is this important?" Unfortunately, it was too good. I hit a wall with my thesis, feeling deflated that he'd beat me to the punch, and said everything I had planned to say. But I pushed on and found that I still had a lot to say about the challenges teachers face in planning a successful digital storytelling project and the continuing challenge of how exactly do we teach students to tell a story. This version of his book covers it all - the important connection between communicating with digital tools and literacy development, visualizing story development, media grammar, and recommendations for necessary computer equipment.

I really feel that this book should be required reading for all teachers. One of Ohler's frequent reminders to teachers is "story first, technology second." But I find that when I mention "story" to teachers they feel that this is a step backwards in their drive to develop 21st century learners. I've got to find a new term. Telling a good story is hard, just as is writing an engaging five paragraph essay. It's often overlooked that students receive far more drill in essay writing than story practice. In every digital storytelling workshop I've run, when I ask participants to tell a story about themselves, it is a very foreign experience for them. Telling an engaging, convincing story should be a skill that we impart to our students (as well as making sure they can tell at least one good joke). Although story does not appear in many ICT documents, it does remind that us that story is one of the oldest ways that information has been communicated, and it should not be abandoned in the Information Age. 

We need to make sure we give students the tools to create engaging digital stories, podcasts, Powerpoints, animations, and larger multimedia productions. The story spine and story mapping templates were just a few resources from Ohler's book that I'm looking forward to testing out with students soon.

Story Spine

Once upon a time...
Everyday...
But one day...
Because of that... (repeat three times or as often as necessary) Until finally...
Ever since then...
And the moral of the story is...(optional)

Virtual Portrait of a Story (VPS)

A digital story adds the new challenge of doing what Bernajean Porter refers to as "dancing text, images and audio together on the screen."  A key step that is easily confused with storyboarding is what Ohler refers to as "story mapping." The simple visualization tools Ohler encourages are invaluable to teachers who feel very comfortable with a template for students to follow. Porter's book DigiTales: The Art of Telling Digital Stories is another excellent resource for teachers wondering what digital storytelling has to offer them.

Meet My Voki

Get a Voki now!

The foreign language classroom and digital storytelling potential of a Voki is extensive.

Get a Voki now!

Visual Grammar: My 2 Cents

I spent the last two weeks working with middle school students on two projects that rely heavily on careful selection of images to support what they're trying to say. Even after ten years of helping students with multimedia projects that require them to select an image to convey an idea or support a part of a voice over, I'm stunned at how some students have no idea of where to begin when it comes to finding an image to go along with statements like "My mom is very nice" or "I use to live in Mexico." I don't think it's a simple case of right-brain vs. left-brain. For all the time I've spent researching how to help students write an engaging script for a digital story, I could write just as much about the challenges students face in thinking visually.

I first heard the term "visual grammar" from Joe Brennan during an interview with him on his approaches to digital storytelling. His job title of Visual Literacy Instructor was new to me. I was more than a bit jealous when he told me he spent most of this time helping students acquire the essential media literacy skills that so many school curricula omit. We expect students to use tools like Powerpoint, PhotoStory and iMovie but often overlook the pre-requisites to effectively using these programs. By effective, I don't mean they know how to add transitions, crop or import images. Students need to learn how to do what Bernajean Porter (read Beyond Words) refers to "dancing text, images and audio together" so that the elements convey an intended point. Few students pick this skill up without explicit instruction.

While it's not hard for students to locate images with the help of Google, Flickr, and Yahoo, they tend to select vague and literal interpretations of what they're trying to say. It would be a fantastic plug-in for Google Images and other image databases if you were prompted with questions that helped narrow your search to better match your intended image need. Now, we wouldn't need this if students understood and practiced Boolean search methods. But even they did use "quotes" and + or - in their keyword searches, they still wouldn't be thinking of what would be the best image for their script. A student was looking for an image to match a part of his script where he said "My grandfather was in the Army in World War II." He typed in "army" and got dozens of current military images. I asked him a few questions about his grandfather. Fascinating story: born in Hong Kong, sold to an American, brought to the US, joined the US Army during WWII. I suggested he use one of the images that featured WWII era soldiers. I was eager to hop on a computer and tackle the challenge of finding an image of a Chinese American soldier from WWII. Later, when I entered "Chinese American soldier WWII" into Google Images I found several images.

Next time I help students with any project that relies on images to get across a particular point, I think I'll go thru a few image search exercises like the scenarios described earlier.

Google just added the Image Labeler tool that might be good practice for students. It looks like they're essentially getting the public to help tag all of their images.

Remember, integrating multimedia projects with your students requires you to think about what's developmentally appropriate to expect of your students. Most elementary and middle schools haven't even had much experience putting together a narrated slideshow. They've all been assigned Powerpoint projects, but haven't received specific instruction in how to make them successful. Try to give them frequent opportunities to interpret images from magazines, posters, websites and news papers. There's a fun drama game that kids love. Use a set of postcards with unique scenes, people, settings, and actions on them. Tell students to select an image and give it a caption, then they could take on the personality of one of the characters in the scene.

Story Bait

I see stories unfolding around me all the time. I'm intrigued most by the stories from those people whose voices are never encouraged or validated. How can a community really grow if it doesn't try to increase the volume and representation of its members? This is what I think must be one of our main priorities as educators working in school environments. Over the past the week at school, there were several big events that generated perhaps hundreds of stories. Unfortunately, these stories will probably never reach more than a few sets of eyes and ears. The photos from the International Fair, Habitat for Humanity trips and China Alive trips will sit on a few dozen computers, maybe they'll be uploaded to Flickr or  someone's Kodak photo-sharing site, a few will end up in the yearbook. How could a school capitalize on the media that's generated by its members? How could you use the photos, video and audio that's recorded to craft stories about the event to share with the larger school community?

Even before you try to pull stories out of people, there's a lot that can be done to facilitate crafting a story. Getting people to upload their photos to one site, such as Flickr or Picassa (to take advantage of the geo-tagging feature) and tagging them with a common tag like "2007 China Alive" would go far to document the collective experience of a big trip. Further along the scaffolding process, you could use the site tabblo and have people upload their photos to a 2007 China Alive group. The commenting feature in tabblo starts the conversations that could lead to a story. The jump from anecdote to story isn't that big of a leap, but answering the question "how did the experience change you?" is what makes a story more appealing than just rambling on about disconnected details. Stories do not all have to contain a profound revelation. As long as they add your voice to the mix in a meaningful way then you've enriched the community.

Master storyteller Jay O'Callahan calls them sparks. He asks people in his workshops to tell a two minute story about shoes or an accomplishment you're proud of or something very basic that nearly everyone has experienced. Sadly, we don't make room for these story sparks in most school programs. I think schools need "story bait" spread around their campuses. I worked on a project a few years ago where we put up neon orange Xs around our school's campus and downtown Atlanta that asked "You Are Here. Why?" The signs had a phone number and instructions to call and leave a story about why the person was at that particular place at that time. All of the stories were automatically accessible online and via their cell phones. I'd like to do something much more low tech for my school here. I'd take a few of the photos from the trips, enlarge them to poster size, post them in the halls and cafeteria with some "story bait" underneath the photos. Maybe a leading statement like "I learned something new about myself." The poster could tell them to call a web-based phone number that records 1 minute of audio. There could also be a website that allows them to enter their stories in text, audio or digital story.

I'll flesh this out this week. In traditional digital storytelling, you start with a story circle where the f2f contact with a group plays an important role in starting down the story path. This approach is different, but in this instance the context of the trip is set and that grounds the story. If I want to try other story bait ideas, overcoming the issue of context is central. The good thing about a school environment is that the school itself provides the basis for so many stories.

When the Muse Calls

It's nearly 3am here in Shanghai and I've got technology on the brain. Since leaving friends, family and my beloved Red Sox on the Atlantic coast and bumping the population here in Shanghai to 18,000,001, I haven't had many moments when I had edu-tech ideas buzzing in my blood. But, tonight I've got online communities on the brain, specifically how to build successful ones for schools. And I think I'm staring at some textbook examples of how a successful online community could fill some pressing needs.

Example #1: Along with about 150 teachers, I live within a ten minute walk to the school. Shanghai American School has two campuses: Puxi and Pudong. I live and work on the Puxi side. When you combine the two campuses you probably have nearly 400 people including the teachers and their families.

The Need: Shanghai is not an easy city to navigate on so many levels. It took me three weeks to find dishwasher detergent and dryer sheets, I haven't bought fresh vegetables for fear of the rumored frightening fertilizer treatments, and figuring out the basic policies of my apartment complex has left me wondering when the Ex-pat's Guide to Working and Living in Shanghai is going to appear in my mailbox(but i'm not really sure mail from outside "The Bubble" actually gets to me).

There are several websites that cater to the significant ex-pat population here, yet they are too vast in audience and fail to pool the body of knowledge that only gets shared in random run-ins with people on shuttle buses or over lunch. When I was living in Boston, Yelp was a fantastic resources. When I had a craving for the best donuts in town, I went to the site, entered "best donuts in Boston" in their search tool and immediately had a half dozen glazed options to explore with links to Google map directions and the key piece of info of how far away they were from my apartment. Our school tried to create an intranet to fill this need, but the reality is why try to recreate the wheel if it already exists. And who among us teachers is really a skilled wheel-maker these days? Yelp is restricted to the US right now, but craigslist expanded overseas. Why not borrow the code for creating a Yelp site and set-up a Shanghai Yelp site?

The company behind Yelp just received another $3m in venture capital support! Online communities are cash cows. There are so many schools around the world facing this need to easily disseminate info and allow its members to add to a shared knowledge base. Craigslist could serve our needs. The Shanghai section is evolving into something more than people looking for "friends" or "conversation partners." The  downside of the craigslist option for us is that it wouldn't be governed or created by us. I think if the SAS community knew there was a place to post questions, such as "Can anyone help me switch my Wii system so it's in English" or more pressing matters like finding a reliable dentist, they'd find it very helpful.

SAS has been here in Shanghai for many years. Thousands of teachers, parents and students have come and gone. Every teacher and family member has had to figure out Shanghai. When they leave without recording what they've learned about Shanghai, all of us newbies miss out on an amazing resource. It would be so sad to live here for a few years and not know that what others feel are the real gems of Shanghai.

The SAS online community could not only tell you the best place to find [insert chinese word here](dumplings), it could have photos of local and far excursions, a section helping ex-pats learn to speak Chinese, classifieds, DVD swaps, a page of scanned business cards with directions in Mandarin/Shanghaiease so people can just print them out and give them to the taxi driver. I can see this really taking off. Over the last few weeks, I've been in so many meetings and had so much info dumped on me that I've probably only digested 1/10th of it. And the real problem is when I need to find that info I have go crawling back thru an inbox that already has a couple hundred emails in it. An online community successfully organizes info so people can access it quickly. It nurtures a sense of belonging and keeps them coming back.

As usual the students are way ahead of the adults when it comes to using technology in their lives. Whether it's mySpace, Facebook or here in Asia Mixi and Cyworld, millions of students belong to these online communities. But when they come to school there's nothing like it available to them. Not yet.

Example #2: I'll try to be more concise in this example. A teacher asked me about helping her ESOL team get reacquainted with their use of Grouphub. Teachers spend an excessive amount of time looking for info they need to do their job. They rely on email to send and receive a dizzying array of info. They need to be able to share resources, create documents collaboratively and asynchronously, trust that those documents are secure, and have tools (other than Outlook calendars) available to them that help them manage lengthy To Do lists and 190 day marathon.

Schools are often at the mercy of "The Network." I'm not going to get into that in this post, but will say that one shoe doesn't fit all feet. Whether it's WebCT, Blackboard, StudyWiz or some other Learning Management System(LMS), you have to remember that each school is unique in its sense of community. I firmly believe that technology can nurture and sustain a genuine sense of community. With a careful assessment of the school's building culture, planning, and training, an online community will meet many of the school's needs.

More on this later. It's 4:30am and I'm supposed to go on a bike trip outside the city in a few hours. When muse calls, you have to listen. Tonight she took hold. I had few other ideas that need to be jotted down here so I can come back to them later.

• Post a challenge for students to find, describe and illustrate in a variety of ways the connection in Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows and the rise and fall of the Nazi regime
• With the new Evoca widget, teachers can post a passage from a current novel/textbook/print resource and have students respond by recording their response orally instead of text. Great differentiation support.
• With another new widget(can't remember the name) you can do PD by creating a Tech Teachers talk show to that teaches/showcases a particular use of technology in action

 

A Sense of Place

My Visited Countries

Get your own Visited Countries Map from Travel Blog

Bridge to Terebithia Re-cut

One of the best parts of having been an elementary teacher for many years is that you're forced to read, re-read, discuss and recommend dozens of young adult chapter books for students. There are so many classic books that I push on my students each year. When the whole language literacy movement swept through schools, schools placed the emphasis on quality literature and bought classroom sets of Newbery Awards winners like Where the Red Fern Grows, A Wrinkle in Time, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Unfortunately, teachers and schools struggled to find a balance between appreciating quality literature and having an approach in place that ensured students were becoming better readers. While it's true that students that love to read become better readers than those that hate to read, it's not a sound pedagogical approach to helping strengthen students' literacy skills.

(*Note: the movie is not as fantasy-filled as the trailer leads you to believe)

Enter the movie versions of classic children's lit. It's not a new idea. I can't get the image of the low budget version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe out of my head that came out in the early 90s, I think. It was more like a high school play. I've been watching closely the expanding monopoly Walden Media has on this market. In particular I've been looking at their websites to see what they offer for expanding the themes of the book. While I'm sure their main goal has been to drive viewers to the theatre, they've done little to capitalize on the web environment for hooking people into the story. I've been prototyping environments that allow the user (web/CD/DVD/PSP viewer) to continue exploring the themes of the story. With the movie versions of these classic stories, we now have new possibilities that take advantage of the booming you-shoot-you-edit-youtube generation.

Bridge to Terebithia, like most classic stories, represents timeless themes such as true friendship, bullies, family strife, and loss. As I watched the film, the digital storytelling teacher in me saw the possibilities for taking clips of the film and challenging students to shoot their own version of the same scene. For example, there's a part where the father tells his son "to get his head out of the clouds" and help out more around the house instead of drawing pictures all the time. Students could shoot their version of this scene that addresses the "loner" theme, which is something that speaks to a lot students. As students are given opportunities to re-cut the story they're being challenged to not only deepen their comprehension of the material they're making important personal connections to the story, in addition to expanding their media literacy skills. Again, this is nothing new. Teachers have always challenged students to rewrite parts of a story as a way to deepen their comprehension. But with the new digital tools available to students it's much more meaningful to shoot, edit and publish your video to youtube.com where others can see your take on the story.

The current educational buzzword/phrase I hear most often is "21st Century skills." I must have used it fifty times in my thesis. My students spend an average of 8 to 10 hours a week online instant messaging, updating their myspace page, working on a GarageBand tune. They have a set of skills that can easily be applied to what they read. The classrooms of the future will hopefully have students still enjoying the classics, only then they will answering what does what I just read mean to me and how I can respond to it in a meaningful way. How can I use the wide range of tools available to me, both digital and non-digital, to communicate that information effectively?

I'll test this you-read-you-shoot-you-edit-youtube idea out with a few students in the next few months. I'll probably use Hoot or Because of Winn Dixie.

Here's an example of how students can extend the connections they make while reading:

Scaffolding Digital Storytelling Part 2

Scaffolding idea #2. Now that I have created a script for a digital story on Thomas Jefferson (see previous post), I thought it would be helpful to break that down to illustrate the questions that I answered in creating the script. These could be used for any type of digital story on a historical person.

• What idea or event connected to this person stands out most to you? [Words of Declaration of Independence]
• How does this person's life (ideas, accomplishments, etc) influence your life today? [War in Iraq, Holy Wars near and far]
• What do people overlook about this person's life? Is it important? [Contradictions; democracy is an experiment; its success rests on the citizen]
• How does this person's life help you understand an idea or historical event in greater detail or from a different perspective? [These words were radical for that time and set the course of history to follow]

The other scaffolding idea was to gather images for a digital story on Ben Franklin, but as I started to do that it became clear that you really need to know what you want to say before gathering images to tell a story about a person. It may work for other types of stories, but I found that when you have a dozen portrait style pictures that's not really going to help you write a script. It will help with the later stages of producing the story. If I were telling a digital story about the attack on Pearl Harbor that's different. You'd have maps, graphic images of the aftermath, FDR's reaction. With a historical person like Ben Franklin, it might be harder. I can still do it. He was involved in so many things. I wonder why he never ran for president. Was he too old by the time we needed someone with his wisdom and experience?

Scaffolding Digital Storytelling

In an effort to finally integrate some ideas I started developing for my thesis on effective digital storytelling, I'm creating and posting short activities that will help students acquire the essential skills that are part of writing and producing an effective digital story. We've been studying the Declaration of Independence. I thought that by providing the script, usually the hardest part of creating a digital story, and then asking students to find/create images that match it they'd find success in their first digital story experience. Later, I'll reverse the process and only provide images and ask them to develop the script. I'll probably use George Washington or Ben Franklin, maybe Alexander Hamilton.

I haven't dabbled much in the curriculum content-focused side of DS. This will provide some valuable data on how reliable DS is at challenging students to apply what they've learned about a topic. Too often, students are assigned a topic and multimedia production project then are expected to "uncover" the curricular objectives during the project. This isn't explicitly stated for them, but it's often what teachers have in mind.

Activity #1

Words.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In the short history of the United States, these are considered some of the most important words ever penned to paper.

Fifty years after he helped write the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson continued to champion these revolutionary ideas.

In his last letter, written ten days before both he and John Adams died, Jefferson wrote to a friend that he hoped the Declaration would serve as a "signal of the blessings of self-government to an ever evolving world."

I wonder if he would be surprised by how his young nation grew up to help spread democracy to so many parts of the world. 

Of the contagious chant of "Revolution" that toppled so many governments.

Would he be proud of our forced efforts to bring self-government to the Middle East?

Could he have imagined a world where the pursuit of happiness held such diverse meanings to so many people?

Where freedom of religion pitted nation...

...and neighbor against one another?

Liberty and the pursuit of happiness have always been at the expense of others.

Nearly 3000 American troops and 60,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the effort to bring "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" to the land where civilization began.

The contradictions tied to these famous words are as ripe today as they were when Jefferson proclaimed equality for all while prospering from and protecting the institution of slavery.

It would take another two centuries before equality for all in the United States was written into the Constitution. President Johnson conceded that we could no longer maintain the hypocrisy of celebrating the famous phrases of the Founding Fathers while denying their benefits to so many and finally gave teeth to the Civil Rights Act.

I try to remind myself that this country is still very young; that this experiment in democracy is still being tested; that a nation founded on a few radical words can alter the course of history.

Thomas Jefferson did not proclaim to have all the answers to the challenges of sustaining an effective democracy. He set the compass of the country pointing in a direction that empowered the individual states to dictate future courses of action. 

In the recent state elections, the people exercised their power and swung control of the Congress back to the Democrats. Regardless of your political views, this is a good thing. Democracy still works.

The next presidential election marks an historic opportunity. With Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama running for president, our country has evolved to the moment when we will test those deeply charged words of "we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

Will it be finally be self-evident?

That a successful democracy depends on the true and accurate representation of

ALL its citizens.