Technophiles

=** Technophiles Group/8Y24 Lab 6: 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 ^\=

I believe Photo essays and digital storytelling, and ebooks are a great way to reach the multiple intellegences. Not every student will learn by words only, or by oral presentations. Often pictures are a great way to make the story or concept come alive for the visual learner. It is also a quicker way to deliver information. Students will gather more information from a picture, or a series of pictures, and they will retain that information more readily then just hearing or reading the story or concept. Our memory can store information in many ways, and one of those ways is photographic. I will often remember directions to a new place once I've driven there once, because I remember the way it looks. I don't remember street names, or house numbers, but I remember the visual appearance of the streets. It would take more time to remember the details if I didn't have the visual cues. Learning new concepts in school is very similar. Students need a visual cue to remember the details of events or concepts. I think this is maybe why we all respond to TV so readily, and why the Discovery channel is so popular. It is teaching and challenging people to learn new things in a way that we can grasp easily. So, it makes sense that students will be engaged in digital stories and photo essays, it is just an educational extention of watching TV. - Tania

Photo essays are an excellent idea for students! I can picture so many classroom applications for this teaching/learning tool. For example, students could create a photo essay about a novel they read in Language. This photo essay would act as a children's picture book and could be pictures of the students themselves posing in each picture. Another way of using photo essays could be in science class when tracking the progress/growth of plants in a classroom. If your class or school had constructed a garden, students could record the changes with a photo essay. Visuals are SO crucial for all learners. Pictures can be interpreted in so many ways, which is why they can be such intriguing writing prompts for students. Not only does it stimulate a writing environment, discussing various interpretations of photos can breed meaningful discussion. I am looking forward to using pictures or photo essays somehow in my Grade 5 placement! - Julia Beacham

I think that photo essays can be a fantastic way to help students explore different forms of communication rather than the simple writing styles. Pictures are great for portraying more than a person can write. “A picture is worth a 1000 words”. In addition photo essays are a great resource for ELL and ESL students who often struggle with writing but an convey their knowledge and understanding of a topic through pictures, images and other media forms. - Andrew B.

E-books are a great way to have students add some "life" into books they have created on a topic. I know for the one I created that I thought how much more effective the ebook was when music was added to the whole presentation. It was challenging to make it play throughout but presentation but worth it in the end. It is also great to link actual places to the ebook so instead of just talking about how castles were back in medieval times, students can give examples and have other students explore these. I think adding the transitions and animations made the presentation more interesting to view. I would use E-books for a topic I wanted to expand further with students.

Liz M

Digital story starters are a great way to engage students at the start of a writing task. Story starters are a stimulus provided to a student as the inspiration for a writing piece. Traditionally story starters have been sentences or another literary piece but in this digital age there are more opportunities including images from the media which accessed easily through the internet. I would use digital story starters in my classroom to discuss the conventions of writing: including but not limited to perspective, word choice, and audience. The greatest benefit of doing this digitally is that you can engage students in current events (like we did with Egypt) or with images of things that are an active part of their lives, i.e. Justin Bieber. I would give the students an image that had several characters and ask the students to write what is happening from the perspective of at least two different people from their image and assess their ability to switch between the two mindsets.

-Andi S.

E-books are an engaging way to present a narrative. I think of e-books as a better version of pop-up books, or the books for children that read to you, or have sound effects. By presenting the information (narrative) in an electronic form, the books can be more interactive and stimulating for our students. In the era of video games, television and the Internet, students need to be engaged and stimulated in the same way that these technologies do. For some, books just don’t do it, so this is a great alternative. I could totally see myself making an e-book of a story and posting online for my students to explore. This eliminates the problem of not having a class set, and students wouldn’t have to carry a heavy textbook home either!

- Jordy L.

"Oral histories" are a great way to keep history alive and interactive. We see history in our school system as a tedious and banal way to look into the past and review the doings of our ancestors. These stories are made pretty cut and dry by the textbooks - often they reduce great battles and major events down to its bare bones and leave nothing to the imagination of the students. Oral histories could be a method to inject some life into history and give the students an opportunity to experience the past in a whole new way. Asking a guest speaker to come in and talk about history that has actually happened to them can really open the minds of students and make an article from a textbook come to life. Some people may consider that oral histories are inaccurate, as they are based on the lives of the people who went through the specific event, but an important point to consider is that history is always going to be biased - better to be biased and engage students, then have them be completely disinterested and learn nothing. - David Tam

"How To Stories" activity is a way for students to present step by step on how something works. This is a great and easy way for students to practice following instructions and learning how to communicate/write sequential steps for others can follow. This could be used as center activities where each student can write down one "how to" activity and have others try to follow their sets of instructions. This will make sure that students are communicating their thoughts clearly because sometimes, you may think it makes sense in your mind, but there might be some missing information for others to fill in the blanks. - Maggie Wing Yi Yu

“Ask an Expert” really stood out to me as a beneficial activity for students. Students are required to ask experts questions through means such as email. Students can email scientists, professors, doctors etc. with various questions. In this, this activity could be used in all subject areas. For example, during language arts this semester we read The Paper Bag Princess and we emailed Robert Munsch to tell him that we were using his book as the focus of our lesson on fractured fairy tales. The possibilities with this activity are endless! A teacher would have to make sure that the questions that students are posing to these experts are appropriate. A lesson on formal writing would be beneficial as well so that students would know how to write in proper form when writing a formal email. By Danielle Bernier

A photo essay is a set, series or collection of photographs placed in a specific order to tell a story, create emotions, or explain concepts. A photo essay uses the same story telling techniques of a normal essay but instead uses visual images to display the information. One could say a 5000-word essay can be represented with 5 images on the same topic displaying the same information. By using this activity students will be able to express their ideas and describe what is happening in a photo. Photo essays can be an affective tool that can be used in a social studies class to represent “then and now” photos representing urbanization patterns in rural areas, science classes to show the effect that global warming has had on our planet, and even a language class to represent an individual biography of a students life. This is definitely an engaging activity that can be used in many/all subjects to engage students in a new and creative way. In my past block I discussed the BP oil spill with my students. Here is an example of how a photo essay can be integrated to aid my explanation in the events of the oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. __ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzQR0G-2kY0 __

__-Jay Stokl __

I would say that integrating oral histories with the photo essay would be an excellent way to vivdly describe stories from one's past, or perhaps even a nation's past. Students could record their own voices and use movie maker to integrate their voices with pictures. They could also use transitions to make it look sharper and clean. This is an excellent way for students to express themselves in a positive way, allowing them to create a history of their families, their culture or country of origin all in the context of using tech-based applications.

Andre Attinello

Photo essays would be an excellent approach as an assessment tool used in either an individual, group, or portfolio fashion. History lessons have a range of curriculum expectations that lend themselves well to story telling with pictures such as describing the major actors of Confederation. Students would work as groups or individually to articulate the life of Sir John A MacDonald in a creative manner. As well, photo essays allow us to incorporate students multiple intelligences into our assessment analysis, in this instance visual learners.

Dan Sfetcu

I think that Photo Essays would be a great activity to integrate technology into the classroom. This type of digital story telling would allow students who are visual learners or those who struggle with writing to be engaged in their learning. Photo Essays combine a sequence of pictures with a narrative of the students’ writing to enhance their digital story. Students are able to express their ideas through pictures as well as descriptive writing. I think that this activity would be engaging to all different types of learners (e.g. kinesthetic, visual) and it also allows for extension opportunities based on the student’s TK. Photo Essays offer students a choice in their learning and at the same time allow teachers to combine traditional methods with 21st century resources. Julia Horan

Photo Essays are a great tool that uses pictures instead of words to tell a story about a certain event. Something like this would be great to use as a differentiated instruction tool. It would be very useful for a student with a learning disability such as dyslexia. He or she would be able to write an essay, story, or research using pictures and images rather than words. In this type of an assignment, I would be assessing the choice of photo or image and the flow of the pictures as well as how well the piece evoked emotion. Photo Essays are a great way to use technology for differentiated instruction in the classroom! - Emily Jamieson

Digital story starters are a set of images given to a student to write a short paragraph, idea or a scenario. Usually story starters begin with a sentence or phrase, however by using digital story starters such as images, graphics or icons, students can become more engaged, specifically if the image is interesting. I can see myself using this activity type with my Grade 4 student’s when discussing Medieval Times. They can be given an image of a concept of medieval times and then write a brief scenario of what is going in the image. I would be assessing the students based on their ability to generate ideas for a specific purpose. - Sabrina Presta

Oral Histories are stories that are told and create a more vivid history of our past. A way to integrate oral story telling with technology is to marry it with the Photo Essay. Students could create voice recordings of oral stories and embed the voice recordings into a Power Point slide show. It would be wonderful for students to take a favourite family story, one that has been told over and over again within their families, and create a new way to share this. I would assess the stories with a rubric looking at the conventions of storytelling, and how well the students married the photos with the sound track. -Sonia H

Photo Essays are a set a photos that tell a story or evoke emotions about an event. I would use this for essay writing as it would help organize student's thoughts i.e. tell me about your summer holidays. It would be also good to create a family tree and then have stories to describe each photo. I would assess that the essay or stories match the photos and the overall composition of the writing and of the pictures.

The activity I selected was using WebQuest which is an inquiry-oriented online tool for learning. Basically it is a classroom-based lesson where information is learned from the World Wide Web, but preselected by the teacher. It is a constructivist tool and is also often collaborative in nature. I can see myself using this in a science lesson that examines Global Warming. I would have students work in groups and each group would focus on a particular aspect of Global Warming. Then students in each group could form new groups (jigsaw) and each would be an expert and teach group members about the area they researched. I would assess students with a rubric by looking at their ability to find the key ideas and discuss them, and their ability to work in a group. - Laura Gatopoulos

//Photo Essays - Electronic Photo Albums // are digital stories that allow students to document a story or event in their life. Pictures, music, and text can be added to tell the story. I would use this for many different aspects within my class- students creating their own book of their life, documenting summer vacations, or even creating a class book of a specific field trip, assembly, or unit (e.g. the Olympics). The use of an electronic photo album can be adapted to meet many curriculum expectations while integrating subjects! I would assess the overall composition of the book, the written work, or even the story itself with the use of pictures/music/text. Whether in a Junior or Intermediate classroom, this can be an excellent tool for individual use, group work, or even as a class to recount special memories! - Stephanie Zarycky

The "Slice of Life" activity is a type of Photo Essay that allows students to create a story within a specific time frame. Using pictures and images, students can portray the events of a story. The images are then presented as a PowerPoint presentation, so students can show the pictures and also include the narration. I could integrate this activity with Social Studies and have the students pretend to be a person during a specific time period. For example, students could create a "Slice of Life" about Laura Secord during her journey to the British soldiers in the war of 1812. If I were to integrate this activity with Social Studies, I would be assessing the students' ability to find appropriate pictures and create proper narration to suit the time period and person they were illustrating. --Bridgette Di Piazza

Digital Story Starters are single images, graphics or icons that prompt the writing process and story .The student develops a brief scenario based only on one digital image that is usually humourous or ironic. Digital Story Starters could be used as a tool to promote writings from different point of views. For example, show an image of a crashed car and have half the class write from the perspective of the car, and the other half that of the driver. The final product could be assessed using the Language Writing expectations of voice and point of view. - Angela Schram

//Sequential Stories: Point of View stories// showcase the role of point of view in understanding actual events as opposed to percieved events. Using this activity, students will observe an event and offer their recollection of what happened; the class will then try to decipher the actual events using the information provided from the percieved event recounts. For example, I could have three students watch a short skit, each from a different place in the room. These 3 students would then summarize what they saw using a PowerPoint presentation for the class, and the class would then try to determine what actually happened in the skit using the three different accounts. I would assess the students' conception of the role of point of view, understanding its effect on everything we see, hear, read, and watch. -Sondra Burrows

Photo essays are short essays that describe with the use of one to three digital images (a series of images). Students are able to express themselves and elaborate on what is happening within the image. Photo essays can be comprises as a journal (individual) or as a class album (multiple different entries). Photo essays would be useful in Social Studies to show migration patterns, in Science to show cell division, or even just to explain a summer vacation or a family tree. It can be used for individual or group work and would truly be an engaging activity. - Danielle Nikiforos -

One tool I would use is a photo essay (-photo album), which is a collection or series of photographers that the creator will sequence to tell a story; it may paint a picture of their life, or evoke emotions for the audience. Typically, there is a caption (or longer description) presented with the photo to point out a particular aspect, or it could be used to tie it to the previous/next photo, or to the overall theme. I did find a photo album of Mark Zuckerberg's family (from //Time// magazine) that was a great example of how this tool could be used in a classroom - students could gather images from their family's history, talk to their parents and grandparents, and then share with others. It may reveal a different side of someone to the class, something they may not have been able to verbalize, but they could tell their story via this digital storytelling method. (After viewing the Zuckerberg album, I gained some compassion for Mark). I would have students do a self assessment after an activity like this, to get an idea of how much work they feel they put into it, or what they learner along the way; I would also assess the final product, the images and written component. Heather B

The activity type that I would like to become more familiar with and could see myself incorporating into the classroom is photo essays. Photo essays can be completed individually or as a class and consist of a series of digital photos/images to describe or depict a story or perspective of some sort. The use of images combined with a caption allows students to creatively express themselves or topic, and provides students with an opportunity to present their work in less traditional way such as a written essay or oral presentation. This tool can easily be integrated across the curriculum in several grades and should not be limited to one class or one assignment! It is a great tool that could be used as an introduction assignment to get to know your students, used for languages or history when presenting/telling a story or a persuasive piece, it can be used for culminating tasks in geography depicting what the environment is like in other provinces, or simply used as a ‘catch’ to engage your students when introducing a new unit! This type of project can be assessed in a variety of ways, I definitely think it’s important to include a self assessment component, but also to assess how effectively students are able to express their topic/points to the viewer relying heavily on images. Valerie Q

In the 21st century we can now properly, and easily allow student to express themselves in their skill set. A digital story using **//Photo Essay or Photo albums//** are alternative ways for students to complete their assignments. Now students that do not have the strongest literacy skills can be successful and get a strong message across with pictures. Putting together a picture project and adding music or words allow students to easily convey their message. Often times student have great ideas but they have trouble getting their message across in words. This is a great way to empower diverse students’ skills and give them the ability to experience success. This can be a great culminating task or assessment tool. Don Ray (brockstudent)

A picture is worth a thousand words right? Photo essays are a great way for students to quickly tell their stories without having to write a major essay. Photo essays are a great way to share your own personal experiences - they could be used at the beginning of the year when a teacher is trying to get to know all their students. Instead of filling out a personal history form, why not have the student create a photo essay that includes their family, friends, and favourite things. These can be shown to the teacher and fellow classmates (if the student is comfortable with this). Top of your favourite things with your favourite music track too. Photo essays have endless potential! Kristin B