NOW Classrooms, Grades 9-12. Meg Ormiston
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Learning goal:
I can create original images to better illustrate my learning and enhance my project.
Not only must students understand how to use images to illustrate concepts and ideas, they must understand how to create their own. This is important because many careers require students to communicate ideas using images as well as text when working with teams that work remotely from different geographic areas. Trying to explain complex ideas with just the limitations of text can be particularly challenging in the workplace if team members speak different languages. Creating and sharing images breaks the language barrier, helping the whole team be successful. To that end, the purpose of this lesson is to get students comfortable creating original images that demonstrate what they have learned and explain their point of view.
Students can use a variety of project-design apps and services to create their own images in their work, such as Tackk (https://tackk.com), Canva (www.canva.com), and Google Drawings (https://drawings.google.com). App features will vary, but these programs typically allow users to make simple drawings, posters, brochures, presentations, and other electronic and printed materials. Google Drawings also has an extension for the Google Chrome web browser at http://bit.ly/1K7OFZ4, which makes it even easier to use.
Process: Creating a Digital Image Project
Use the following six steps to teach students how to create a digital image project.
1. Have student groups select an app or website to use to create their image project.
2. Students should start a new design project and choose a design type or theme. Designs in presentation and poster categories are ideal because they scale onto 8.5- × 11-inch paper. Students can choose to use either a premade layout or start a design of their own.
3. Tell students to experiment with different design elements by adding shapes, grids, frames, and photos to their project. Canva, for example, includes a collection of both free and premium elements. (Students should stick to free options.) They should also customize these elements to adjust their size, color, and location on the page.
4. Students should add text elements of different sizes and fonts.
5. Depending on the design type they selected, students may have the ability to change their project’s background image, color, and design.
6. When they finish their image project, have students save their work and export it or share it. Specific exporting and sharing options will vary depending on the app or platform students selected, but if possible, have them share their work by copying a URL to it and submitting the link on the class LMS.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
TEACHING TIP
Students can get started with creating images in multiple ways, including by taking digital photos throughout the school building, drawing images and then scanning them, using apps like those highlighted in this lesson to make images, and using a spreadsheet tool to create graphs or tables.
• English language arts: Assign students to groups, and have them retell a chapter of a book they read using only images that they create. Students can exchange their project with another group and discuss how accurately the images retell the chapter.
• Mathematics: Provide students with an article containing mathematical data related to your curriculum. Students should create a graph or table to organize, analyze, and make sense of the data. Consider having students create different types of graphs or tables to compare and contrast information. Groups of students work together using the same data, but they should create different types of charts including comparison and relationships, composition, distribution, or a word cloud.
• Science: When students learn the periodic table, discuss with them the basics of the periodic table groups (noble gases, transition metals, and so on). Students can create images that provide visual representations of the differences between the groups.
• Career and technical education: In design class, have students draw a floor plan of a room using specific dimensions and details that include windows and doors. Next, students should furnish their room to scale. This is the start of a unit that will grow in sophistication to later become a three-dimensional model of a home.
Wow: Annotating and Enhancing Images
Learning goal:
I can enhance images by annotating them and making them interactive.
As students become more sophisticated at using imagery to communicate their learning, they can explore more advanced ways to manipulate images and create more complicated visuals. Advanced image manipulation can involve an infinite variety of elements, from creating simple annotations to adding interactive elements like web links to external content or creating cool new products like special effects on photos or original comic strips. Students can even use more than one app or tool to manipulate the same image or images.
For annotation purposes, have students explore tools such as ThingLink (www.thinglink.com) and Annotable (http://moke.com/annotable). These tools let users import images and tag them with links to webpages, text, and videos that others can view by clicking on those annotations. For more evocative ways to shake up students’ use of imagery, introduce them to tools like Comic Life (http://plasq.com/apps/comiclife/macwin), PicMonkey (www.picmonkey.com), and Evernote (https://evernote.com). These tools let students do everything from create comic books to fix up photos and add special effects to them or annotate a PDF.
Process: Manipulating Images
Use the following five steps to teach students how to annotate and manipulate digital images.
1. Instruct students to locate or create an image to explain a unit topic to a classmate. Once students have the base image, they will further manipulate it to clarify how the image connects to the content.
2. Have students add annotations to the image using text boxes that either highlight something important about it or explain their learning on a topic.
3. Have students make the images interactive by adding links to them that point to external content, such as webpages or videos.
4. As a separate product, or as an enhancement to the current one, have students use a specific tool to apply special-effects filters to their work or create a specialized visual product (like a comic strip). Remember, the ultimate goal is for students to enhance images in visually interesting ways that also demonstrate their learning.
5. Have students share their final products through the classroom LMS and then, before an assessment, work with a partner to exchange images and discuss the unit content.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
TEACHING TIPS
