Tech-EZ

Tech-EZ Group/8Y24 Lab 5: Place your cursor BELOW the three lines. Type in your Activity Types Reviews below. Then place a line under your entry. To Post Click EDIT............................................................................................It is over here ^\

Peter Short

I think the Story Starter activity is a great way to spark the imaginations of young students learning the writing process. Showing students a collage of visual images is a great way to transport their thoughts to a different place, culture, era etc. .. Have your students make sense of the images, and prompt them to create a story based on the inferences they can pull from each picture. This tool can be used in social studies, history, geography, language, and even math in some of the younger grades (be creative). It makes for a great cumulative task, and assessment can be based on whether students apply their creativity and/or prior knowledge to the images being explored (e.g. the images could depict a scene or time in history that the class has studied in depth to prepare for the task). It can also be fun!

.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Photo Essay's can be used in so many ways. When looking at integration within various curriculum expectations, a photo essay could incorporate so much; language, social studies, history, science, math, and more. I feel as if a photo essay is great for visual and kinesthetic learners. When looking at comprehensive literacy, a photo essay might be a great idea for a culminating task, whether the big idea be, making connections, point of view, or whatever. The possibilities are endless, it can be used for so much. A great way to compile content into a story, or even feelings into a story, can't wait to try it out with students!

Brent Moore

A digital Eye Spy would be a great activity for diagnostic assessment and would also be an effective hook when starting a new topic: you could theme the Eye Spy to the new subject (e.g. in social studies or science) and have the students discuss what they recognize (to bring out prior learning and to see how much they already know). It could also be fun as a bell work activity while students are gathering. Additionally, as a future French teacher, it could provide a great incentive to have students practice new French vocabulary. It could also make for a good culminating task: students could great their own digital Eye Spy based on the subject being covered in class, then write about its theme and provide instructions of what the viewer should look for (written assessment). They could even read it out loud to the teacher or instructionally to the class for oral assessment. All in all, I think the digital Eye Spy has many possibilities.

Emily Hultquist

Photo essay is a great tool to use for the Junior/Intermediate division. It allows students to be creative in expressing their ideas. It is particularly beneficial for struggling students as it helps them to compose more strategically. Essentially, photo essays allow struggling students to use their creative and artistic skills to express thoughts and ideas and it increases their strengths in other areas. It is a great tool to use to motivate children to create essays. Antonella (ap10ob) _ //Fotobabble// Students upload pics and can record themselves as they talk about what is going on in the picture and why it is important to them. Because this is free, and is so easy to use I can see it being an excellent tool to use in any classroom. A simple way to incorporate the use of Fotobabble is for presentations. Instead of having students create a poster or workk on chart paper, they can create photo essays that are narrated about their project. Students can demonstrate their knowledge, feelings, and thoughts without necessarily writing it down. Having said that, Fotobabble should not totally replace writing or speaking in front of people, but it can be used as a great tool to accomodate those students who may suffer anxiety or have difficulty expressing themselves in writing. Also, the photos used could be personal photos or be ones that come from Creative Commons and are about current local and global events. The assignment could have the students critically think about what is going on in the picture and think about point of view. What a dynamic and exciting tool!. - KATRINA HILL

Photo essays are short essays that are explained with the aid of one to three digital images (a series of images). Students are then able to express themselves as well as elaborate on what is happening within a given image. Photo essays can consist of many things such as journals that are individual pieces of work or class albums (which can have multiple people inputting information (i.e. multiple different entries)). Subjects that photo essays could be useful in: Science: Students can describe a cells division in the five different stages (interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase, and telophase) for study notes; or Social Studies: to show migration patterns and trade routes. I believe that photo essays allow students to be creative and allow for individuality while engaging in this activity. - Shauna Daley -

I found photo essays a very interesting tool to use in the classroom. It allows students who are visually inclined to complete an assignment that they may find a lot more fun than writing. As for students who enjoy writing have the opportunity to test their visually artistic merit by completing an assignment that values visual arts skills. Students have the opportunity to use pictures and designs that they may find on the internet or in magazines to compete the story via graphics. Though writing may draw in more verbal descriptors I feel as a teacher when implementing creativity in the classroom a photo essay would benefit greatly. Anthony Sorrenti __

The photo essay is a fascinating concept that I believe is under utilized in the educational environment. It allows artistic and visual learners to express themselves in an interesting manner while portraying a story, concept, or topic. The images can be a collage of royalty free images, but genuine learning would take place if as teachers, we encouraged the students to document and photograph all the subjects themselves so that all the work was original. This would not only provide a better final product, but would engage the students in an interesting way and improve their learning. In essence, photo essays allow students to demonstrate their knowledge on a subject in an interesting and visual way that is not possible through conventional essays. (Alex Coccia, ac10xi)

Character Map or Web: This is a visual map showing how different categories of a topic are connected. A character map specifically identifies traits of a character and how they are linked to their actions and motivations. This activity would be great for Language Arts or History, where we are studying fictional or non-fictional characters that have impacted the text or historic time period. It is a great way to visually display their life’s timeline and significant moments. Assessment would be focused on whether they are applying appropriate text information within the map or web that they are creating. (Katarina Madzarevic, km10nm)

Story Starter, is an innovative way to help students develop creative writing skills whereby a visual image or group of images are shown to students, working as a prompt to generate ideas for writing. I could use this across the curriculum; one specific area could be social studies, exploring medieval times. I could show students a collage of images representing medieval life and life today. Students could then be asked to explore and contrast based on the images. This could be done as cumulative activity and students could be assessed based on their ability incorporate topics discussed in class in combination with their own knowledge about the world currently. (Thadeane W.)

Digital Story Starters are a great teaching tool to use instead of the basic story starters we’re used to. These thoughts, sentences, or phrases are still good ways to help students start writing, but digital story starters are more fun. They can be a single image, graphic, or icon that helps to make up a scenario and prompts their writing. For added effect, the image, graphic, or icon is usually placed in the digital story itself. Some great examples are [|scholastic] and [|story-it]. Try to have students create an image as a visual art assignment and use them as a digital story starter. To extend this activity, get students to switch their images. This way you can see different student's points of view of the same picture. – Diane Pinto (dp10wg)

MADlibs funny stories created by inserted proper word forms (noun, verbs, people’s names etc.) throughout a story. Once the blanks are filled in with the random, but appropriate words, often times the story turns out to be (usually) unrealistic, but often hilarious and the students love them. After students create their own MADlib, they could exchange stories with classmates and have them fill in the blanks. Once the stories are complete, students could create sketches, painted pictures or even find free (legal) graphics online to tell the story of their MADlib. Assessment possibilities lye in language arts, with proper use of words, sentence structure and in visual arts with the creation of their pictures whether they be sketched, painted or computer generated. (June S)

A 3D book report is a visual representation of the information in a book. Commonly made on nets for cubes and then hung or displayed in other ways, 3D book reports or "picture cubes" can be a great way for students with a more visual way of learning or representing their knowledge to show the different parts of a book they read, as opposed to writing in out in prose. I would use this in a lesson where I was focusing on the different stages of a story, like the conflict, climax, etc. In this activity I would assess the information or the representation of information the student chose to put on each side of their cube. What a great idea, especially to be integrated with visual arts! - Lesley W lw06ei

Internet Scavenger Hunts is a method of instruction where students search specific websites (chosen by the teacher) looking for answers to questions provided by the teacher or information for research purposes. I believe internet scavenger hunts would be a useful tool to use when teaching the healthy living strand of Health and Physical Education. You could send students on an internet scavenger hunt researching nutritional information (for example label information or how to grow strong bones) then have them compare the information, or create a poster or brochure outlining the information you collected. The assessment would be of the final product they created using the information from the selected websites. - vn10bo

A MADlib is a short, fun, and interactive word game (in-print and online) where students provide the author or “madlibber” of an incomplete story (e.g. has missing words) with an assortment of words of different parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, adjective). The author then inserts the word list into the story to replace the missing words to finally complete the paragraph. The author then proceeds to read the story, which often results in a funny and/or silly prose. As a teacher, I plan to implement MADlibs in my classroom using the SMART Board for my language lessons when reviewing with the class different parts of speech because this simulation is fun, engaging, and allows all students to participate while achieving learning objectives. One aspect of this activity I would be assessing is reading comprehension and if students are able to identify different parts of speech by providing various examples. [|Mad Libs]- Deanna Milevski

I like Photo Essay as a tool I would like to use in the classroom. It is a great creative way for students to express their thoughts and what they like from using photo essay. It would also help ESL students who are just beginning to grasp the English language and in the meantime, the ESL students can use this type of technology in subjects such as history, language arts, and science to help get their ideas and what they have learned in thier subjects across to the teacher and peers. One of the good features of photo essay is that you can just use the pictures to get your meaning across or you can add text to it as well. I am glad I was introduced to photo essay. Mirella P

I think Alphabet Stories is a great tool to use in the classroom. Even though I am a J/I candidate, I was drawn to this P/J tool for teaching students how to read and write. It helps students to learn the letters and their sounds together to help lay the foundation for effective reading and writing. The books have engaging pictures and stories that really interest the students and make them want to learn. In my class, I could have my students create their own alphabet books with pictures from their own environment. At the end of the term, our class would have a class set of alphabet books! It also integrates the use of technology into the class and lets the students familiarize themseleves with the computer and using powerpoint, or iphoto etc....It excellent student center activity, students can create their own alphabets, and we are "stretching" creative thinking skills--creating a written statement based upon visuals (diagrams) requires students to think "outside the box." - Sarah Orfei

A visual dictionary is not your traditional dictionary that is organized in alphabetical order, instead it uses pictures organized in themes to illustrate the meanings of words. As a teacher could see myself using visual dictionaries not only to cater to visual learners, but because visual dictionaries can be multilingual with words in several languages, they would also benefit the ESL learners in your classroom. My lesson idea would be to have students create their own visual dictionaries, perhaps with specific subjects as their themes, which would be a great exercise to incorporate art and literacy skills. Assessment could focus on whether the student has used appropriate pictures to accompany text, neatness and organization, thematic organization etc. Danielle Hopkins

Using a digital Eye Spy activity could have avariey of great classroom applications. As an introductory lesson on a subject this could be a great discussion starter. Have students find as many details on a particular subject as possible and then allow the class to find connections and develop questions. Much more interesting than a KLW chart and more interactive. Alternatively students could create there own Eye Spy digital collage and then ask a partner or group to find and explain certain objects or a group of objects that meet a particular criteria. Creating the Eye Spy could be either a formative or summative assessment for a unit. This could involve finding the pictures and or researching them or making an application to another subject or topic. Ruth Newman

The photo essay is a great tool for the classroom. Through photo essays students are able to creatively express their ideas. It is a great tool to be used in Differentiated Instruction; it is particularly beneficial for visual learners as it helps them visually exprees their thoughts and opinions. Photo essays allow struggling students to use creative and artistic skills to express thoughts, opinions and ideas. I could see myself using this for students struggling in writing as well as visual learners. It is a great alternative to writing. What i would be assessing in this type of assignment is the ideas and fluencey of the images ensureing that the story flows and is understood by the reader. - Lauren Alvarado (la10kp)