websites have different annotation features, including labels and drawings; sizing options; the ability to rotate, flip, or move items; and so on.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• English language arts: Students can search for an image and annotate the image to show how it relates to or reflects aspects of a piece of writing.
• Mathematics: Students can take a photo of a problem they solved on paper and use the annotation features to explain how they solved the problem. Also, students can annotate or label the properties of any geometric shape (sides, angles, symmetry, and so on) on an image of the shape to demonstrate the learning target that the teacher has created.
• Social science: Students can select a primary-source image and annotate the image to demonstrate what they learned about the topic. You could collect these student-created examples in a Google Slides presentation, creating a multimedia study guide.
• Science: Students can take a photo of an experiment and annotate their findings. Students and teachers can work together to decide when this would be most useful to their learning objective.
• Art: Students can take a picture of something they have created and annotate the image to share what they learned about the specific style of art.
Learning goal:
I can edit and manipulate a photo to enhance its purpose.
Wow: Enhancing Digital Photos
The purpose of this lesson is to provide students with a creative outlet to demonstrate their learning through enhancing digital photos. This higher-level technology skill has students critically study the base image they select and enhance it to demonstrate what they have learned. For example, in English language arts, students find an image to use with their piece of writing, but they determine the image would better match the tone of the piece if it appeared in black and white. With these new skills, students can modify an image to make it black and white. Students can apply these photo-editing skills to more sophisticated presentations in the future.
Process: Editing Photos Online With Photo-Editing Software
To complete the following four lesson steps, we recommend you use PicMonkey (www.picmonkey.com), a free online image editor. If you prefer, you can adapt this process for use with a variety of other options. Other options may offer different features. For example, Photoshop (www.adobe.com/photoshop) is used for modifying and enhancing images, whereas PicCollage (https://pic-collage.com) can be used to add multiple photos into one final collage. We encourage teachers to allow students to choose the application that works best for their project, device, and learning style.
TECH TIPS
1. Students should take a picture with their device. The image is saved with other photos on the device or uploaded to the student’s Google Drive.
2. Have students navigate to the website PicMonkey (www.picmonkey.com), using a web browser. Students should select an image from their device that they would like to enhance. Once the image is selected, students should upload the image to the PicMonkey website and select the pencil icon in the upper-right corner.
3. Students can crop the image and change the light, color, and more.
4. Have students save and share the newly modified image.
Connections
You can apply this lesson to different content areas in the following suggested ways.
• Cross-curricular teaching: Students can search for multiple pictures to tell a story or give step-by-step instructions of a process. By editing or manipulating these photos, students can clearly demonstrate what they are learning.
• English language arts: Using story elements, students can order pictures and enhance and annotate them to create a comic to retell a story the class has read or to create an original story. For nonfiction texts, students can add captions or label photos to identify the steps in a process to complete a task.
• Social science: Students can search for an image from history and modernize it using digital tools. Students can Photoshop themselves into a primary-source image.
• Science: Students can search for photos or use their own photos of an experiment or a scientific principle they study. Students can save, categorize, and order images in a project according to sequence, progression, or complexity. They can annotate or label claims and evidence of the principle taught, such as matter phase changes, weather fronts, and the plant life cycle.
• Art: Students can take a picture of their original artwork and digitally modify the piece. They can then compare and contrast the two images.
Creating Video Projects
Creating videos is one way students demonstrate what they have learned. There are many free and low-cost options for creating videos on different types of devices. Depending on the devices your students will use to create the videos, we have included a variety of websites, apps, and programs. We’ve included a range of tools because not all classrooms will have access to the same platforms. For example, the program iMovie (www.apple.com/imovie) is only available for Macs, and the app is available for iPhones and iPads. Throughout the lessons on creating video projects, we emphasize that planning is important. Tony Vincent’s blog, Learning in Hand, includes valuable resources to help students prepare and think through video projects. The post “Plan a Better iMovie Trailer With These PDFs” (Vincent, 2014; http://bit.ly/1yjjSMX) shares storyboard templates students can use with iMovies as they plan for creating a video. If you are using a different video platform, feel free to create a template for your students, or have students use paper and pencil.
Learning goal:
