This is an education-related blog written by Mrs. Leah Obach @LeahO77. Leah is currently working as the Literacy with ICT Teacher Leader for Park West School Division, working with K-12 students and teachers to help them use technology for teaching and learning. She has taught at the early years, middle years and high school levels.
Student work, teacher reflection, resources and samples from classrooms around PWSD are included in this blog.
I had the opportunity to help Ms. Ward's Grade 3/4 class design digital posters to showcase their knowledge. We started by reviewing some exemplars from other students and we co-constructed criteria for our own posters. We reviewed some key skills like changing page layout, adding text boxes, adding images, changing fonts/colours and changing backgrounds. Then, students used Google Slides with images from pixabay.com to create a poster that met the criteria.
To learn more about designing digital posters and see more student samples, visit this blog post.
Thank you to these students for sharing their work with us!
Mr. Baskerville's Grade 6 class at Major Pratt School has been working on creating book trailers to showcase some of their favourite books! We started by watching some book trailers and determining what elements should be included in a good book trailer. This process of co-constructing criteria gave students a list of elements and features to include in their videos.
Next, students were given a graphic organizer to plan the content for their trailer. Once students had done some planning for their trailers, they were introduced to Powtoon and given an overview of the tool. Students were also introduced to sites for sourcing public-domain images such as Pixabay and Unsplash.
Students then spent additional work sessions putting together graphics, text, animations and music to bring their plans to life! Some of the book trailers are now complete and published on YouTube (with permission).
Watch some book trailers below to see the final products or visit our YouTube playlist.
The Truth About Twinkie Pie by Kat Yeh Book trailer by Julie
Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Dog Days by Jeff Kinney Book trailer by Otello
Diary of a Wimpy Kid- Meltdown by Jeff Kinney Book trailer by Kenneth
Zombies Attack! The Rise of the Warlords Book 1 by Mark Cheverton Book trailer by Drighton
I Survived the Hindenburg Disaster by Lauren Tarshis Book trailer by Alex
Can You Say Catastrophe? by Laurie Friedman Book trailer by Alexsa
TBH, This is So Awkward by Lisa Greenwald Book trailer by Charlie
Haunted Canada by Joel A. Sutherland Book trailer by Caden
I Survived the Attack of the Grizzlies by Lauren Tarshis Book trailer by Katie Jedi Academy by Jeffrey Brown Book trailer by Nathan
Helping students publish their writing is something I've done in my own classroom and while supporting other classrooms in my role as Literacy with ICT teacher leader. I think that publishing student writing is a great way to share student work with a wider audience, while integrating technology and encouraging students to polish their work to share with others. I've blogged about How to Create Digital Books before, but I've recently been exploring another option for book creation. Our school division is currently transitioning to Google Suite for Education, so our students and teachers now have access to Google tools. Inspired by Eric Curts' ISTE presentation, Beyond the Slideshow, I've worked with some students and teachers to create books using Google Slides. I don't have any samples to share just yet, but I do have some tips that I've found helpful!
Ways to Use Google Slides for Book Creation
whole-class book
individual book
choose your own adventure story
e-book, manual, textbook or guide
Tips for Using Slides for Book Creation
for a class book, create one slide (with a sentence starter, if desired) and duplicate it Slide>Duplicate take photos of student work on your iPad or tablet and upload them with the Google Drive app Insert>Image>Drive to avoid copyright infringements, check out these sources for images: openclipart.org pixabay.com Use the “Drag and Drop” method to easily insert images
click on image from website
drag to Slides tab
drag down onto slide
Share student books
File>Publish to web
provides a link and opens in full-screen presentation mode
File>Download as>PDF
saves as a PDF File
Create an audiobook by recording narration with Screencastify
Create a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure non-linear text by linking text to a slide
highlight text, right click and choose link
choose “slides in this presentation”
choose the appropriate slide to link
Have fun with fonts
Click on font menu and choose MORE FONTS
Apply a default font
Slide>Edit Master
Select all text and change font
Exit slide master
Try making it collaborative
SHARE button at top right, create a sharing link or share through Google classroom
with large groups, I suggest assigning each person a slide number for their work
Helpful Resources for Using Slides for Book Creation
One of the awesome parts of my job as LwICT Teacher Leader is that I get to be involved with a wide variety of learning activities. In May, I was invited to help Mrs. Bowley's grade 7 class with a really awesome book trailer project. Students viewed a variety of book trailers before selecting a favourite text and planning their own book trailer. The grade 7s used iMovie to create their trailers and then uploaded them to YouTube. Next, they made posters with QR codes linked to their videos so they could share their book recommendations by displaying the posters at their school.
What I Like...
I think the final videos are really well done and I've got a long list of books I want to read after watching them! There was a lot to like about this project, but some aspects that stood out to me included:
Creativity and Communication
Bringing together images, text and music to create a compelling book trailer video required creativity and this group of students certainly let their creativity shine! The project also required effective communication. Students demonstrated their understanding of a text and conveyed the essence of the book by selecting appropriate elements to include in their video.
ICT Infusion
This project is a great example of how ICT can support and enhance learning. Students were able to use technology tools to demonstrate their understanding and knowledge of a text. I also really like how technology enabled sharing in this example; the QR code posters and video links are great ways for students to share their work with a wider audience. I think other students and teachers will enjoy watching these!
Digital Citizenship
When I first visited the grade 7 class to help get their book trailers started, we discussed copyright and the need to respect others' work. We talked about sources for public domain images and royalty-free music. I know that these thoughtful conversations continued because I heard more about digital citizenship when I returned for my next visit. I learned that the students did some research on acceptable use and discussed how copyright was applicable to this project. Students also discussed sharing their work and considered which platform to use, how much personal information to include and how the videos would be shared. I was happy to see and hear students thinking about digital citizenship as they worked on this project.
Watch These!
Okay, you've got my perspective on this cool project - now it is time to watch some samples! Thanks to Mrs. Bowley's class for sharing the book trailers below! They are definitely worth watching. You might even want to compile a list of books to enjoy this summer.
Local Author/Illustrator Dianne Conrad visited our classroom last week as part of our bookmaking project! She is writing and illustrating her first children's book called "Dama Grows" She brought one of the paintings for the book with her and her sketchbook. We got to ask to ask her TONS of questions and we saw her website http://www.dianneconrad.com/ Then, she gave us some tips while we worked on the artwork for our greenscreening project. We were so glad to have a special visitor in our classroom and we hope to buy her book when it's ready!
