I love web tools that allow teachers to provide the right level of support for each student with a minimal amount of work on their part; after all, technology should be making work more efficient , and streamlining work rather than generating more work. PicLits.com is one of those web tools that offers multiple levels of support to help learners at varying levels.
PicLits is a website that allows users to write original poetry based on a visual prompt. It provides users with a variety of high quality, interesting pictures intended to invoke emotions, thoughts, and ideas. Students select a picture from a scroll at the top of the page. Then the student can select drag-n-drop [sic] or freestyle to add words to their picture. Drag-n-drop [sic] is the default setting, so words in lists separated by part-of-speech appear at the bottom of the page which students can click on to move to the picture. Then, the students can arrange the words on the page anyway they want. The drag-n-drop option is great for students with writing disabilities or students developing English vocabulary. For students who do not need the scaffolding of a word bank or need the challenge of coming up with their own words, there is the freestyle option which allows students to type any words on to their picture. For students that need a challenging enrichment assignment, teachers can have them use the drag-n-drop option, but require them write in iambic couplets, write a haiku, or write a poem only using prepositional phrases.
The creativity that PicLits inspires will get students’ minds churning with ideas. These types of quick activities are a great way for students to build confidence, but a longer, more involved project will allow students to examine their creativity and grow it in ways smaller assignments cannot do. Check out their introductory video. Khan Academy and Pixar Studios have partnered together to provide this learning resource. This amazing resource shows how animated films are created; it is interdisciplinary project-based learning guaranteed to engage your students! While they recommended this curriculum for students in grade 5 and up, I would suggest adjusting the lowest level to students who have a solid understanding of the slope-intercept concept in mathematics. If you have 3rd graders who can compute slope, then great! But if your 8th graders struggle to understand that concept then the math and related concepts will probably be too frustrating for them. While PicLits and Pixar in a box are great creative resources for students to use in your classroom, Spark Post is an app available on IOS or Android that students can use on the fly on any mobile smart phone or tablet. Spark Post is an Adobe product that allows anyone to take a picture, or use a stock photo, and create social posts, memes, inspirational quotes, or graphics. Not only does it make high quality graphics in just a few taps on your device, it is a ton of fun to play with. Fair warning: don’t download it unless you have a couple hours to kill! Students can use Adobe Spark to add an graphic to a presentation or create a data visualization or infographic to demonstrate learning in any content area. For students with special needs, having them demonstrate learning by summarizing a main idea or the gist of a major concept with a picture and a few words is a great way to support their learning. Also, all learners could use this tool to create visualizations of vocabulary by finding pictures that represent the definitions. Having a classroom where students can be creative can be a huge drain on the teacher; also, the time it takes to teach students all of these tools can take away critical time from covering content standards. So how can a teacher encourage their students to use a variety of tools that allow them to be creative while still maintaining high standards? My recommendation to teachers is to not reinvent the wheel! Once the teacher knows the tool well, and can effectively explain what to do as they navigate the steps to access the tool on their own computer then they are ready to screencast the process and build their very own library of training videos. One easy to use screencasting tool is Screencast-O-Matic. Check out my screencast as I explain how to convert a PDF into a Word file.
1 Comment
Julia Cagle
3/25/2017 11:21:37 pm
I enjoyed reading your post this week! You definitely have an ease with words and frame ideas in a meaningful way for educators to gain new insight! Your culminating idea of creativity hit the nail on the head for this week as we investigated numerous tools. It seems students are having the creativity beaten out of them, but on the other hand the world is demanding creativity! I wonder what would happen if teachers felt they were given the ultimate freedom to allow students to create and be creative? This is especially true as we are heading into testing season.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Ana HaleHula Hoop Champion, 1980 Crestwood Middle School (I can't believe I peaked in the '80s) Archives
November 2017
Categories |