Life-Long-Learners

Are you looking for an engaging computer-related activity or project for your students? Regardless of the grade or subject area in which you teach, I think I have an idea that you will find both stimulating as well as educationally relevant.

Over the past few years, much emphasis as been placed on technology integration throughout all subjects in the K-12 spectrum. However, many educators may become frustrated because they feel that their students need to be scheduled into the school’s computer lab to use technology in a meaningful manner. Others may feel that image acquisition is restricted based on their school or divisional filtering policy. To help reduce such frustration, I propose that students complete this “Image with a Message” activity, on their own time, to demonstrate that they can use basic technology skills to enhance other assignments or projects in any discipline.

I asked myself, what are the main tasks or concepts that all students should be able to perform when using technology. Regardless, of the particular curriculum, I believe that each student should be able to use the technology to accomplish the following three basic tasks:

• search the Internet critically;
• enhance projects with images from Creative Commons; and
• give appropriate credit.

Students who can accomplish the above three fundamentals will be better prepared to use technology in a meaningful manner to enhance many school-related assignments and projects.

I want to remove the hassle for all teachers who feel that it is necessary to gain access to the school computer lab before recommending that students engage in any computer-related endeavour. Why must students always use computers at school? In many cases, students have access to computers at home, in public libraries, or in community centers that are more sophisticated than the equipment in their respective school computer labs. Furthermore, asking students to work, perhaps in pairs, outside of school fosters important collaborative skills that have life-long benefits. Perhaps individuals who don’t have access to a computer at home can be teamed up with another student who has ready access.

“Image with a Message” Activity Overview

Each student must create a JPEG image that combines the following three components:

1. a famous quotation or statement that has relevance to the subject being studied;
2. a “Creative Commons” image that combines to illustrate the above quotation; and
3. the computer address link which identifies the “Creative Commons” image.

“Image with a Message” Lesson Steps for the Teacher

Although the following steps are directed to teachers, I have also included a somewhat similar student handout (in both Word and PDF formats) at the end of this blog entry.

1.    For students who learn best by seeing the “big picture”, educators should showcase some of the samples that I have created for this blog entry or select other “Image with a Message” creations from some of the following sources:

• Will Lion’s web site at: http://www.will-lion.com/
• Will Lion’s Photostream examples at:
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/will-lion/
• Darren Kuropatwa’s “Interesting Snippets” at:
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/dkuropatwa
• Great Quotes About Learning and Change at: http://tsheko.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/great-quotes-about-learning-and-change-flickr-group/

2.    Since each student’s final JPEG image will be emailed to the teacher, on or before the assignment due date, it is best to determine a standard image size. For example, one may recommend, based on the screen resolution of the computer in one’s classroom or school lab, that each project’s final image dimensions must be 800 x 600 or 1024 x 768 pixels.

3.    Team up students in pairs. Ensure that students who do not have access to a computer outside school are matched with a partner that has access to a computer with internet access. Even though students are working in pairs, each student must create his/her individual “image with a message”.

4.    Select a famous quotation that is relevant to the subject area. Team partners must select a different quotation and a different image. Possible sources of quotations, from famous individuals, may be located at such web sites as:

• The Quotations Page at: http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/
• Brainy Quote at: http://www.brainyquote.com/
• Famous Quotations Network at: http://www.famous-quotations.com/

5.    Review the Creative Commons License Types at:
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

6.    Demonstrate how one can use the Flickr Advanced Search at: http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/

For example, to find the previously shown “light bulb” image, I entered the words “light bulb idea” (without quotes) in the top search field. I then checked off the “Photos/Videos” media type. Lastly, and most importantly, I checked off the bottom “Creative Commons” filter by selecting the two qualifiers to “Only search within Creative Commons-licensed content” and to “Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon” since I hoped to combine or re-mix an image with a quotation.

7.    Browse through the various “Creative Commons” photos until one finds a suitable image and click on its thumbnail to see the larger version.

8.    To help return to the selected “Creative Commons” image, bookmark it or identify it as a favourite.

9.    Click the “Actions” button to “View all sizes” and, most importantly, click the top “License” link to verify that one has permission to use the image selected.

10.  Select the image size which is closest to the previously determined standard image size in Step #2.

11.  Demonstrate how to download and save a relevant, appropriate-sized “Creative Commons” image.

12.  If students have access to Microsoft Office, they can use the “Insert > Picture > From File” menu items to place the downloaded image into a blank PowerPoint slide. If not, one can use the “File > Open” menu items to load the “Creative Commons” image into a “paint-type” program. Remember to resize the image to fit the final standard agreed-upon image dimensions.

13.  Position a text frame appropriately on the “Creative Commons” image and enter the chosen quotation and author. Choose an appropriate font, size, and colour and then position this quotation to maximize impact.

14.  Return to the bookmarked “Creative Commons” image (in Step #8) and copy the image address source. Repeat the above step by inserting this web address near the bottom of the image and size it appropriately to give the necessary “Creative Commons” attribution.

15.  During the save process, PowerPoint users should click the down arrow at the end of the “Save as type:” field, scroll down and choose the “JPEG File Interchange Format” to save the current slide as a JPEG image.

16.  Once the final image and quotation layout has been finalized, make certain to save the JPEG image using the student’s first and last name as the image filename. (e.g. Robert-Finigan.jpg or Adya-Singh.jpg)

17. To complete the activity, email the final image as an attachment to your teacher and support your partner with their “Image with a Message” creation.

Next Steps

Teachers, or a student-team, should insert all the JPEG images into a PowerPoint presentation that can be shared with a class. Students might be encouraged to vote on their favourite “Image with a Message” and discuss why such slides have impact. Make certain to save such a PowerPoint presentation for subsequent years as one will find it beneficial to use local, student-created images to challenge new students to the subject or grade. Some teachers may choose to print some of the “Images with a Message” and display them on bulletin boards within the classroom.

Teachers often wonder how to challenge students who complete projects early or want to extend their learning. I would recommend if such individuals are using PowerPoint, that they investigate the steps outlined in my earlier blog post entitled “PowerPoint Pizzazz“. The technique, which readers are encouraged to view at this video link, demonstrates how colourful PowerPoint slide images can be made to “come alive” during a presentation. Perhaps such students might be challenged to create very colourful “images with a message” that can take advantage of this “fade to colour” technique.

“Image with a Message” Samples

Although the original Creative Commons licensed image above specified “No Derivative Works”, I contacted Rémi Janner who graciously allowed me to add Albert Einstein’s quotation to his amazing picture and share this remix. Thanks Rémi for your understanding and willingness to share.

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• IMAGE WITH A MESSAGE – Student Activity Handout (Word format)
• IMAGE WITH A MESSAGE – Student Activity Handout (PDF format)

Take care & keep smiling

I admire a well-crafted digital story. I admire one even more, when the message can be used to instruct or motivate K-12 students.

Imagine my delight to recently view a YouTube video entitled, “Digital Citizenship – Who Will You Be?” which demonstrated, in an exemplary manner, all seven attributes of an outstanding digital story. Not only was the story well-crafted, it also focused on the very important, but hard to teach, “big ideas” of “Ethics and Responsibility” and “Social Implications” from Manitoba Education’s Literacy with Information and Communication Technology’s (LwICT) “Affective” domain.

I encourage the reader to invest 83 seconds to view this remarkable digital story created by Rosalind Robb – a LwICT Consultant for Manitoba Education:

Not only does this video have an important message, but it is constructed with the following elements that exemplify good teaching practices:

• engaging students by using freeware or open source software (such as iMovie or Photo Story 3) so students may also work at home to improve such projects;
• showcasing Creative Commons licensed Flickr images;
• incorporating background music that students enjoy using appropriate crediting processes;
• demonstrating the creative use of the Ken Burns effect;
• providing a detailed “credits screen” which viewers can use to investigate video elements; and
• sharing the video via YouTube so that other students and teachers can benefit.

Rosalind’s video creation was in response to another remarkable Manitoba educator-created digital story entitled, “Show Your Media Literacy”. This media literacy video was posted as a “teaser” to encourage students and teachers to showcase what digital media meant to them. Rosalind took up the challenge and decided to create a digital story using the Windows Photo Story 3 freeware, which she had never used before. In early October 2009, Rosalind (a.k.a. “RozzyBearHere”) shared her creative resource on YouTube so that other students and educators might benefit from its important message.

For the first few months that this video was posted on YouTube, it had a modest viewing audience. However, this changed dramatically in early June 2010, when the video was selected as “Today’s Spotlight Video” in iGoogle. The video “went viral” and, as of today, is fast approaching 160 000 views, together with being embedded in numerous blogs like this one.

However, with fame comes feedback, fans, and frustration.

In addition, this digital story comes with its own serendipitous “teachable moments”. These opportunities are driven by more than 100 feedback comments that viewers made in response to the “Digital Citizenship – Who Will You Be?” video. I encourage readers to scan these remarks, which are listed in reverse chronological order, to gain a sense of how this video was received by the wider YouTube viewing audience.

Thankfully, when Rosalind posted her video, she chose to moderate the comments made about her video. As viewer feedback was sent to her, she was immediately faced with several questions:

• Do I permit all comments to be viewed?
• Do I share only positive remarks?
• Do I permit negative feedback and comments?
• What do I do about feedback which is rude or inappropriate?

Rosalind admitted that, as an educator, it was a real “eye-opener” to witness the number of inappropriate comments made by viewers who, because they are logged on with an alias or pseudonym, think they have anonymity and no longer need to be respectful or responsible for their comments. Would such individuals be just as rude or profane in a face-to-face dialogue with Rosalind or is this just their “web presence”? I also wonder if such on-line rudeness and profanity will come back to “bite them” should their Internet alias(es) become known to future employers or bosses. After all, it has often been said “what goes around comes around”.

Students and teachers, who share video creations using the YouTube mechanism, need to be aware that feedback is not always as positive as one might like nor is criticism always constructive. For this reason teachers, who post student-created videos on YouTube should not only choose to moderate viewer feedback but also take time to educate students about the potential for inappropriateness. Students need to understand that although there will be positive comments from fans, there may also be the possibility of frustration from harsh, negative or inappropriate comments. To help prepare educators to use YouTube more effectively with students, I encourage readers to investigate the first two “moderation” entries by Wes Fryer found at the end of this article.

Regardless of the frustration of having to moderate inappropriate and rude comments, I thank Rosalind and many like-minded students and educators who are willing to deal with such hassles to share their creativity and concepts using YouTube. To give the reader a final positive spin on this blog entry, I leave you with a list of educational videos that you may wish to share with your students. Knowing that many educators have YouTube access blocked at school, perhaps one might want to investigate these videos at home to determine their appropriateness for use with your class during the next school year.

I wish all educators a well-earned, relaxing summer holiday with family and friends.

Take care & keep smiling

Resources:

• You Tube Comment Moderation is Great (and Recommended) When Videos Go Viral
• Remember to turn YouTube channel comment moderation ON
• 100 Best YouTube Videos for Teachers
• Use Online Video in Your Classroom
• Using YouTube Videos in Education
• YouTube EDU and other good websites for finding educational videos
• Kahn Academy Library