Congratulations to Donna Berny, English Language Arts teacher at Rayburn Middle School! She won 3 iPads for her classroom for submitting this excellent lesson in which students used various Web 2.0 tools to create a photo mosaic representing a central idea from a novel.
Lesson Description:
Students will use technology to make connections between the novel, Things Not Seen, by Andrew Clements, and other facets of media which include other novels, movies, television, internet articles, poetry, music, etc. The students will create a photo mosaic and word cloud to represent their findings.
Materials:
- Student laptops/computers
- Photo Mosaic Requirements handout
- Bibliography handout (using easybib.com)
- set up student accounts for kidblog.org so that they can access the information necessary for the project
- prepare handouts with directions for using the websites if the students have not used them before, as well as requirements for the project
- post links to necessary sites on the class blog for students to access
Procedures:
Note: This project has many steps and takes several days unless the students already know how to use the programs. In some cases the number of resources can be reduced/modified for time and student ability.
Students will conduct various searches using the internet in order to piece together areas of other media that apply to a central idea: invisibility. Their final product will consist of a photo mosaic that includes: 2 word clouds (1 using the word "invisibility" and one for their name), photo snapshots of 2 TV shows or movies, 3 novels, 2 internet articles, 2 poems or songs, and 2 quotes all related to the idea of invisibility.
1. Using the instructions provided in the handout, students will create a word cloud on tagxedo.com. They will include words related to invisibility, including the word, forms of the word, various definitions of the word, synonyms, and one book and movie name that relates to the word. They will complete the text, personalize it using the website, and save it to their student laptop as a photo to be included as part of the final product, the photo mosaic. Students will be allowed to use dictionary.com to locate all the facets of the word "invisibility."
2. Students will use InstraGrok.com to conduct a search for articles related to an idea of invisibility. Students will choose 2 articles, site them using easybib.com, and take a screen shot using the Grab program on the computer. Students will copy the citation into a word document where they will keep all of the citations for their sources for the entire project. Underneath the citation for the articles, they will type a 1 paragraph summary of each article.
3. Students will conduct a Google search to locate TV shows or movies, 2 poems or songs, 3 books or novels, and 2 quotes that include an element of invisibility. Once located, the student will find an image to represent their findings, cite the source using easybib.com, include it in their list of source citations, and save the photos to be used later in their mosaic.
4. Students will create another word cloud for their name using the same site they used for the word "invisible." In this word cloud, they should include their name and choose a shape that represents their personality.
5. Students will open the Big Huge Labs instruction sheet by clicking on a link from the blog, and use the instructions to navigate the bighugelabs.com site. Students will create their own name and password as well as include their email address so that photos they use can be saved under their account. Once logged in to bighugelabs.com, students will click on the Mosaic Maker. They will choose a layout, upload the photos they previously saved, and place their photos to be arranged into the mosaic.
6. Once students have completed their mosaic, they will save it to their computer and also post it to the class blog for their classmates to view and comment.
7. Students will print out their works cited page to hand in to the teacher at the end of the project.
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