Put It All Together
Building fluid environments for learning involves developing instructional materials, activities, and assessments that meet the needs of all learners.
Let's explore projects, collaborations, and reflection.
Eight Effective
Project Missions
Rather than individuals or teams simply creating reports, comics, movies, or presentations, refocus the activity on a specific category of deep understanding.
The comic examples were created using Comic Life and in some cases online software.
Click the image on the right to see it full-size.
Explore eight missions: Entertain, Emote, Inform, Instruct, Challenge, Engage, Provoke, and Persuade.
Entertain
• Visual Storytelling • Language Development • Creative Writing • Diary • Re-enactment • Speculative Project • Experiences •
Goal: Convey a story, imagine a world, illustrate an idea
Watch Somewhere over Web 2.0 from Wizard of Apps: The Musical.
- Middle School Examples
- Boys in Skirts, Tag, A Day in the Life of a Nerd, and The Christmas Club
- Music Videos: Over You, Found, In Your Eyes, Destiny
- Historical Re-enactments: Choices. This historical project is set in 1944 Germany., Voices of Laurel Grove. Young people selected people buried in the local cemetery to bring back to life through monologues, Letters to Lincoln. Based on a true story, Minutemen: YouTube
- Stories: An Unfriendly Visitor, The Salesman, Need an Idea, 99% Accurate, Internal Affairs and Stealing Graduation, and Visibly Impaired, Pink Eyed Zombies, The Stand is a mockumentary, Slick Rock Festival (YouTube) comedies, action/dramas, foreign language films, Bernajean Porter's DigiTales website contains lots of stories.
- Music Videos: What You Readin', You're Not Alone, They'll Never Know, Someday, Crank Dat Dental Floss, Detention Blues, Slick Rock Festival (YouTube) music videos, The Weapon featuring a youth band.
- Television Spoofs: The Tech Lab and The Classroom. Based on The Office.
- Re-enact History: The Package (Vimeo). Based on D-Day time period.
- Speculative: The 254 Year Old Boy. An African-American high school student meets a Revolutionary War soldier.
- Teacher Examples
- Music Videos: Science Rapper on YouTube. Check out Edgar Allan Poe Takes on Cancer, Sweet Primary Sources
Explore some comic examples:
Emote
• Show, Not Tell • Share Insights • Connect to Emotions • Activate a Poem • Demonstrate Traits • Convey Concepts •
Goal: Express a feeling, illustrate an abstraction, move an audience
Explore movie making examples:
- All Ages
- Middle School Examples
- High School Examples
- Hero Street USA
- The Picture Box
- Activate Poem: Breaking the Habit, Feet, Timed Thought
Explore some comic examples:
Inform
• Documentaries • Histories • Databases • Photo Essays • Represent Ideas • Categorize • Show Patterns • Share Results •
Goal: Analyze information, explain causality, visualize ideas
Explore movie making examples:
- Middle School Examples
- Documentaries: The Life of a Type 1 Diabetic (Grade 7-8), My Journey with Celiac Disease (Grade 7-8), Public Education: Fine or in a Crisis, Documentaries: Vimeo, Concussions in Youth Football: Vimeo
- High School Examples
- Documentaries: Breaking News: the End of Civility, Underground Dances, Camp Purple, and Education for All, To Kill a Mockingbird: Then and Now (Grade 9-12), Road to Redemption (Grade 9-12), The Elastic Tree, Slick Rock (YouTube) 2010 Documentaries, Hydropower, Mountain Biking
- Family Stories: Our Wedding
Explore some comic examples:
Instruct
• Tutorials • Directions • Demonstrations • Presentations • Conduct Experiments • Demonstrate Procedures •
Goal: Show strategies, explain concepts, teach others
Watch how teens are Using the Flip Video in a High School Math Class (YouTube): Part 1 and Part 2. Add pipecleaners (Youtube) for some fun with graphs.
Explore movie making examples:
- Middle School Examples
- Tutorials: Making Brownies with Chef Darren, How to Play Drums (Grade 7-8), How to Make Ice Tea (Grade 7-8), How to Ride a Bike Safely (Grade 7-8)
- Explanations: Snow White and the Author's Purpose. Learn about the author's purpose in writing.
- Strategies: Swine Flu Caper
- High School Examples
- Tutorials: The Journey of an Immigrant, How to Make Friends, How to Drive a Stick Shift (Grade 9-12), How to Make Slime (Grade 9-12), The Scientific Method (Grade 9-12)
- Comedies: How 2 Txt in Clas
- Experiments: What's the Matter?
- Explanations: Energy Transformation. Learn about science.
- Strategies: NeverBurn
Explore some comic examples:
Challenge
• Present Issue, Challenge Thinking • Visual Story Starters • Introduce Problems • Inspirational Examples • Extend a Story •
Goal: Create dilemmas, envision problems, kickstart projects
Explore movie making examples:
- Middle School Examples
- Challenge Thinking: One Nation Under God by middle school students to begin a discussion of this issue.
- Inspire Thinking: Edible Pencil
- High School Examples
- Challenge Thinking: Knowledge by high school students to begin a discussion of passing on knowledge.
- Story Problems: Graphing Stories from Dan Meyer for a great math example.
- Watch How to Make a Math Project winner of the CSTMF.
- Conflicts: Watch middle school conflict scenes at Vimeo. These each end with a question about what you think will happen next.
Explore some comic examples:
Engage
• News Programs • Visual Journal • Travel Logs • Yearbooks • Highlight Programs • Create Welcomes • Showcase Work •
Goal: Announce events, document experiences, reflect on lessons
Explore movie making examples:
- Middle School Examples
- News Programs: First Things 1st 2011, First Things 1st 2010, MMS News
- Topical News: "The C Word"
- Special Events: Happy Birthday B-TV, Morning Madness News: Celebrate Literacy
- Special Programs: Lucille Ball: Behind the Laughter
- Student Showcase: Tina Siao Portfolio.
- School Program: Feel the Burn. Students explain their physical education program.
- High School Examples
- News Programs: Storm Surge, Wolfpack TV, Music is Fun, NTV Morning News
- Topical News: Student Owns His Own Business, Fine Arts Update, Green Club (YouTube)
- Special Events: Fifth Star from Adobe Youth focusing on the one hundred years of women's right to vote. Notice how interviews, historical photos and footage, and personal narratives are incorporated, Step Up Youth Summit
- Teacher Examples
- Where's Boomer: Teacher-produced project for ELL using Comic Life: Vimeo
- Reflections: Beyond Anne Frank, Bungie Barbie, Monach Butterfly Life Cycle, Stand Up and Speak Out
Explore some comic examples:
Provoke
• Public Service Announcements • Stir Interest • Influence Thinking • Impact Behavior •
Goal: Arouse emotions, heighten awareness, change attitudes
Explore movie making examples:
- Middle School Examples
- PSAs: Buckle Up, Rumours Stick, Prescription Drug Abuse, Depression, Smoking Claymation (Grade 7-8), Don't Smoke (Grade 7-8), No Vote, No Voice (Grade 7-8)
- High School Examples
- PSAs: Unearthing Hope, Don't Be a Gutter Ball, 5210, Repercussion, Don't Sext: Just Text, Your Word Is..., Message Received,Sierra Suicide Prevention (You Tube), Suicide, Health Pass, Winning Pass from 2010, Step Up Anti-Violence campaign (You Tube) : Caveman, Dance, Kids, Pass from the Slick Rock Student Film Festival: Cyber bullying, Saving Energy, My Name is Hope, Cyclist, What Does College Have to Do with Me?, My Change, SPCA, Be the Power Of One, Be Healthy, Anti-bullying. Watch the winners from 2010. Throw Out the Habit (Grade 9-12), Second Hand Smoke (Grade 9-12), A Fairy Tale (Grade 9-12), Testing while Driving (Grade 9-12),
- Change Attitudes: I Need My Library (You Tube). Winner of the Why I Need My Library Competition, I'm Just a Book, Why I Need My High School, Adobe Youth Voices.
Explore some comic examples:
Persuade
• Illuminated Term Papers • Advertisements • Book/Movie Trailers • Apply Advertising Techniques • Promote Action•
Goal: Support arguments, show perspectives, convince others
Explore movie making examples:
- Elementary School Example
- Advertise: Buy My Cereal, Please!: Vimeo
- Book Trailers: Book Trailers for Readers, Trailee Awards
- Middle School Example
- Take Action: Repair the World. Begin a discussion of how young people can make a difference in the world.
- High School Example
- Take Action: Recycle Rap. Focuses on recycling.
- Advertise: Enchanted Playhouse (YouTube), Basketball Promo, The Santa Tracker. It's a moc-commercial., Slick Rock (YouTube) 2010 advertisement winners
- School Play Trailers: Scrooge Trailer, Play on Trailer and Younkers Trailer
Explore some comic examples:
What does this type of activity look like?
Make it Authentic... identify personal interests and local connections to the Korean War.
Korean War through...
- Audio
- Video
- Unforgettable from PBS
- Unforgettable from Arizona Public Media
- National Memorial Day Concert from PBS
- Interactives
- Sixty Years, A War On Hold
- The Price of Freedom: Americans at War (includes all US wars)
- Timelines
- History Timelines from the British Library
- Visuals
- Oral History Projects
- Experiencing War from Library of Congress
- Background Information
- Korean War from Wikipedia
- Government Resources
- General Resources
Focus on firsts. How was the Korean War different from other wars? Explore some aspect and interview veterans about their experiences. Generate a product to share conclusions.
Truman desegregated the Armed Forces in 1948 just prior to the Korean War. This was the first war where African-American and white soliders were fully integrated. Learn more at Desegration of the Armed Forces.
Use Stixy for planning. Upload to SchoolTube.
Interdisciplinary Connections: Find Natural Fits
Seek opportunities for collaboration. Combining two subjects can create synergy. Look for natural fits such as Physics and Mathematics or Stage Light Math. Explore ways to combine history and historical fiction writing such as Chicago Stories.
A mash-up is a web application hybrid. It combines data or functionality from two or more sources to create something new. These have become increasingly popular with Web 2.0 applications such as blogs, maps, and photo networks. With so many different sources of information, it's sometimes difficult to get the "big picture." Mash-ups provide a way to begin synthesizing information. For instance, Google Maps can provide a geographic view of content. At his blog Learn Digital History, John Leeconnects the Library of Congress Folklife Center audio interviews made after the bombing of Pearl Harbor with Google Maps. You see Buffalo New York on the map, then you can hear what the people said.
Think of the ways young people could create their own mashups. Show them the Sherlock Holmes maps. Use the Mark Twain Stormfield Project for ideas. They've identified Mark Twain's Connections on Google Maps. Could your class create a project identifying this connections to other places around the world?
Infusing technology into teaching and learning.
Reading Plus History. The teacher infuses tools such as a VoiceThread to bring the learning experience together through photos, video, and website materials to motivate and engage.
In learning about the Vietnam War, young people can draw on a wide range of resources including graphic histories such as the Dwight Zimmerman's Vietnam War: A Graphic History, a collection of short stories such as Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and websites such as the Library of Congress Veteran's History Project. The resources and technologies come together as the student uses a maps, photos, a Flipcamcorder and SchoolTube and Google Docs to share her project.
Try It!
Collaboration create synergy and promotes transfer of learning.
Who will you collaborate with this year?
Identify another teacher in the building and begin a discussion about collaboration.
Reflection
How will you use these resources in your classroom?
Try It!
Go back through your handouts and circle ideas you want to explore later.
Create a list of three things to get yourself started.
Tips for Success
Remember...
- There are many ways to see and understand.
- Consider approaches that challenge conventional thinking.
- Think different about presenting ideas.
- Technology needs an engaging assignment.
- Use technology to create fluid environments for learning.
Use the links on the left to move through this online workshop.