Listening to Student Voices: Piktochart

June 5, 2016June 6, 2016Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

This is a story done about one of my students, after working with Piktochart and participating in their user story last year, thought hearing from students about the benefits of Piktochart and other tools in the classroom. Thank you to Jacqueline Jensen and Piktochart for this great post, originally posted on Medium.

User Story: Students Using Piktochart

In this user story, we talk with Dana Grover, a high school student in Pittsburgh, about how she uses Piktochart inside and outside the classroom, why she thinks visual storytelling is important for her generation, and her favorite EdTech tools.

The fast pace of technology advancement is affecting students outside andinside the classroom. At Piktochart, we often talk to teachers about how they are using Piktochart in the classroom. Uses range from creating a new visual take of the traditional syllabus to utilizing one of our 500 templates to quickly turn text-based material into engaging visuals for the classroom.

But we felt like we were missing an important voice in the conversation. What do students think about Piktochart? Do they think that visual storytelling is a trend that will stick for their generation?

Meet Dana Grover

Dana Grover lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is a student at Riverview High School.

“I am a theatre enthusiast who is involved with the marching and concert bands, orchestra, and chorus, along with the Spanish, drama, cinema, and Model United Nations clubs at Riverview,” she told me. “If someone were to look for me outside of school, they would find me in the kitchen, listening to my extensive music collection, or just relaxing.”

Dana first learned about Piktochart about a year ago. In fact, a big part of her discovery of Piktochart was thanks to her Spanish teacher, Rachelle Poth, who we profiled recently in our video user story series. Check out how Rachelle uses Piktochart in her classroom. Video on Youtube of User Story

https://medium.com/media/5c8803e681e7507d48552eba3e8c8d35?maxWidth=700

Piktochart User Story — Rachelle Poth

“Technology is a big part of our Spanish curriculum,” said Dana. “We find new and interesting ways to use it, and showcase our knowledge through it. When I started taking Spanish, all of our projects had to be created using some sort of digital presentation application.”

Dana said when Ms. Poth discovered Piktochart as a tool for students to use to create their presentations, she was quick to share it with all of her students, “as she is prone to do with all great tools,” recalled Dana.

Dana said the way class projects are set up leads students to use new websites each time something is created. “So when I had already used Visme, Sway,Glogster, and others, I decided to try Piktochart,” she said.

“What made me want to explore Piktochart more was when my peers presented in class and I saw how organized and aesthetically pleasing their projects were,” Dana said.

When she thought about what she and her peers needed in an EdTech tool, Dana pointed to one must-have:

“We need to be able to express ourselves in creative ways. Piktochart lends itself to this perfectly,” said Dana.

“Everyone wants technology to be fast and easy to use,” she continued. “Teenagers want lots of choices when creating projects, because we are our own projects, and we want to be able to have choices and create ourselves in creative ways.”

Dana’s Work on Piktochart

When I asked Dana to share her favorite project on Piktochart with me, she was quick to point to an infographic she made about one of her favorite shows — HBO’s The Leftovers.

“Piktochart was the perfect tool to use for this project,” she said. “The Leftoversis such a good, well thought-out, creative show, and I needed a website that was going to be able to do it justice. I was really pleased with all of the options I had when making this project. I felt like I was able to create exactly what I had envisioned it to be, which is not the case for a lot of tools.”

Dana’s Tips and Tricks for Using Piktochart

Dana knows what’s it’s like being new to using Piktochart, so I was curious to hear some of her tips and tricks for newbies.

“The first thing I would show them would be text features, photo options, and background choices,” she said. “Not only are those the basics to creating an infographic, but Piktochart does a really nice job of making these features accessible, easy to use, and extensive in their range of creativity.”

Dana said that when she first started making infographics, she wanted to make the visual longer. The problem, she recalled, was that she couldn’t figure out how to add blocks to build on to her visual.

“It probably took me a good 10 minutes before I realized that when I had a block selected, in the upper left hand corner was a button to add more blocks,” she said. “And below, there is the option to re-size them, which is really helpful.”

For those who are new to using Piktochart, this is what Dana is talking about. This is how to add more blocks!

Dana told me she loves how many symbols, shapes, and colors can be put into visuals she creates using Piktochart.

“Lots of applications have options, but not nearly as many as Piktochart for creative purposes,” she said. “My presentations don’t have to be dry when I use Piktochart. Whatever I envision for my project, odds are I can create it with Piktochart.”

Dana’s Favorite EdTech Tools

When she’s not creating on Piktochart, Dana said she loves using Storybird. Storybird lets anyone make visual stories in seconds. The team curates artwork from illustrators and animators around the world and inspires writers of any age to turn those images into fresh stories.

“Storybird is another great website because it is fun to use and really simple,” said Dana. “I love that people are able to write their own stories and use professional artwork to accompany it. The best part is that you can order your story as a hard or soft cover book. Everyone who worked on it is cited — the author, the illustrator, and the website.”

Another tool in Dana’s toolbox is Sway. Sway, a digital storytelling app, was recently released by Microsoft and is part of Microsoft Office.

“Sway’s layout is very interesting, with options to make a beautiful cover page and online poster-style infographics,” explained Dana. “There are a lot of options on Sway when it comes to pictures, so when I created mine, I only used images from the website, which was really helpful to save time and citation effort.”

Looking for more ways to utilize Piktochart to make students excited in the classroom? Or maybe you’re looking for ways you can use infographics to make your next school assignment shine? Take a look at how teachers and students alike are using Piktochart in the classroom!

Staying strong to the end of the year! Thanks Teach Thought

May 13, 2016Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

treePSU

The Year Is Almost Over. Don’t Miss The Opportunities.

by Rachelle Dene Poth

As the final grading period sets in, it’s hard to not look forward to summer vacation, having days where we don’t have any particular place to be or tasks to attend to, but we have to remind ourselves to keep our focus, stay motivated, and keep up that momentum until the finish. Too many days can be lost as a result of changes in schedules, standardized testing or any number of things that can take away from the valuable class time at the end of the year. There are many factors that can lead students and teachers to lose momentum such as: nicer weather, school sports, school musicals and activities and the rounds of standardized tests.

Classes, teachers and students can be pulled into many different directions and finding ways to stay engaged, motivated and working right up until the end can be a challenge. I am not saying that I have all of the right answers but I decided to do things a little bit differently for the end of this school year. I decided to take some risks. I wanted to try some new things, give the students more control in the classroom, and see what happened.

What brought about this change of mind, change of plans and new perspective?

Lots of things. A combination of finishing out a two-and-a-half-year graduate program for a Master’s in instructional technology, getting involved at education/technology conferences and edcamps, and interacting with people having various roles in these areas and hearing some really great ideas. A lot of my inspiration came from seeing my students involved in a technology showcase and the pride that I felt while watching them taking the lead, advocating for technology use, interested in more opportunities, and my desire to make things better, more interesting and meaningful for them.

So taking a bit of time over the recent spring break, I thought about what had not been going so well, things I might like to try to change or improve upon. I referred to my list of different ideas and tools that I’ve wanted to try in my classroom, but did not have enough time. I wanted to try different ways of doing things I had always done, to see if it made an impact in the classroom. I figured that now was as good a time as any to integrate some new ideas, to seek student input and to change things up a bit.

I thought that the end of the year seemed like a decent time to do this because it could lead to creative and innovative way of trying things, different from how we had done things throughout the year. And it would provide an opportunity for reflecting over the summer break.

Sometimes change is good and the benefits are seen quickly and sometimes they are not. Worst case scenario in my mind was that the changes I would make and the different methods for enhancing student learning and interactions in class would not end up as I or the students hoped, but in the end, it’s all about learning and growing. And then figuring out what the next steps should be and starting from there. It is about taking risks, evaluating, reflecting and then moving forward. But there has to be a first step.

So if you find yourself feeling like this. If you are seeking a way to help the students hang in there for the final stretch of the school year or to keep yourself going as well, think about trying something different, that has been on your list. Maybe it is a new classroom setup, or trying a different tool, or some other activity, that will give you just enough time to get some experience, involve the students in the decisions and get their feedback.

Having this information at the end the year can provide some really valuable information, leading you to reflect over the summer. Perhaps you will start off the new school year with these ideas. Worst case scenario is that it doesn’t go as you or the students had planned, and so you use that information to reflect and grow and plan something different or better for the future.

Starting with change number one.

I had a day to think about where I wanted to start. Was it a specific activity? Or should I try a new tool in class? After some thought, it ended up being the same way I started the school year, creating a new learning space.

I am always trying new ideas, activities, tools and more now with my classes than I have never done before. In some cases it’s trying out a new idea that I just thought up right before they came in, and in other cases it’s integrating a tool that we had used before, but because of lack of time, did not have opportunities to use recently. Regardless of what you decide, it will be something new and different and just might be that extra spark that you and your students need to stay strong to the finish.

I can give you some examples that have been working for me but again, it’s what you need and what’s best for your students. I will share some additional ideas and how they went in my next post but here are a few simple ideas to consider if the learning space is an area you would like to change.

Can you change around your learning space? Can students be paired up and then rotate seats every so many days so they have a new partner to work with? Does your classroom lend itself to movement and flexibility?

I changed the arrangement of my classroom so students would be seated across from each other. I wrote numbers on cards and the day they came to class, I gave each student a number written in Spanish. They had to put themselves in numerical order and then starting with one, were able to go in and select their seat. It was a fun activity and the students were really excited about the opportunity to choose their seat and the different setup. I was nervous because I was not sure how it would all work, but I was willing to give it a try.

So, what happened?

I used the new arrangement as a way to have students work with peers more in cooperative learning activities during class. This has had many benefits. I am still working through it, but my students like the arrangement and sharing the role of teacher and having opportunities to collaborate more in class. I had them take on various roles and complete different activities with their partners over the first week. Sometimes it was seated in their group, others it was combining with another group, and a few times we did gallery walks with activities and stations in the classroom.

These are just the first in a series of changes/new ideas that I started with and I will admit, I was a bit hesitant and nervous at first because I did not feel as in control. I can tell you that each class reacted differently and some reactions initially to the new seats, new methods were not all positive.

So I took this as an opportunity to ask my students for their input, whether in conversations, in writing, or surveys. I had to set up some expectations and let them know that it was a risk and that it might need adjustments along the way. After a few days, it worked out and the students have said how much they are enjoying this new experience. And I’ve noticed less students looking at the clock and less counting down the days to the end of school.

As a facilitator more with this arrangement, I have been able to interact more with them, answer individual questions, assess their needs more regularly, and continue to work on the relationships. So I take these as good signs and what’s even better is that they seem to be making more progress with the material which is an area that is quite difficult for students in Spanish II to master.

So this is an evolving process and I would love to keep you up-to-date to where it goes for the rest of the year. So I leave you with this: think of a class or classes that you have, in which it seems like students need a little something extra. Find a spark. Ask them what could help them to learn better, make things more exciting, and then just try something.

Get them up and moving, mix it up, whatever you do it will be new and different and hopefully keep everyone going strong. And don’t give up too soon, give it some time and see what happens.

The Year Is Almost Over. Don’t Miss The Opportunities.; image attribution flickr user vexrobotics

Storybird: Students tell stories with beautiful images.

May 9, 2016Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Recently posted on Edueto Magazine

The path to integrating more technology into the classroom

So if you have been following along with my posts since I started writing

for Edueto, you can see that my method of and path toward integrating technology has taken many turns. I first started by trying to find one area of my teaching and my classroom that I could improve. After some consideration, reflecting on my practice, observing the daily routines, I determined there was a “disconnect” occurring between my students and myself. I did not feel that I was as accessible to them and their needs as I could be or more importantly, wanted to be. But the counterpart of this was that I also felt the students should bear some of the responsibility and be accountable for accessing classroom materials and asking for help when they needed.

Over the past two and a half years, it has been an ongoing, evolving process. One which has led to greater reflection, additional changes, and more than I could have imagined. It all started with the simple addition of one tool into our classroom, Celly, for messaging. This first step solved that disconnect and brought about so many positive changes for my classroom. From the beginning of this tech integration journey until now, the variety of ways that we have found uses for Celly are tremendous.

Once I felt comfortable with that first step, I began working with other areas of technology integration. I began using Edmodo for our LMS, which helped with the original issue of “disconnect” and provided access for the class resources and a central location for students to get what they needed. Edmodo provides a lot for teachers and students and has many apps available which we use and enable students to connect with automatically.

These initial steps evolved into the integration of alternate assessment tools such as Kahoot, Quizlet, SurveyMonkey, Riddle, Quizizz and more. These are just a few of the great tools that can be used for formative assessments and some also for student reflections. Once I felt comfortable with these choices, and I could see the benefits for my students, my next step was finding more ways for the students to show what they had learned and what they could do with the material. My prior post focused on project based learning and the benefits, so I would like to share one tool, Storybird, and how it can be used to give students an engaging, creative way to present information.

Storybird

While I have always enjoyed the traditional paper style presentations, I found that moving over to digital formats and letting the students choose from a variety of the creative web tools available for completing their projects, served many purposes. It was important that I offer resources that would give students meaningful ways to demonstrate their learning, but also have fun and be creative in the process. I wanted something that could meet their unique interests. So I started looking for different ways for students to present their information, but still be comfortable with creating the end product and learn something new in the process, technology skills.

One of the first tools we tried was Storybird. It has been one that my students have enjoyed using in Spanish and for other classes, and have shared with family and friends.

I first came across Storybird in the summer of 2014 while taking a course in special education, and I had to create a project that would describe legislation in this area. While there were many choices out there for presentation formats, I wanted to create more of a book style presentation, with vivid images that would add to the information. My search led me to Storybird and so I decided to give it a try.

Getting started

It was really easy to get started. I created an account and searched the available themes, until I found one representing an educational setting, and began creating my project. The themes are full of images created by various artists that contribute to the book with their vibrant illustrations. Storybird was very easy to use, to add my information and also to select from a variety of very vivid and engaging images to highlight my content. Editing the images and changing the layout was simple, and I really enjoyed presenting my information in this way.

When I assigned the first project of the new school year, I added Storybird to the list of student choices and several students used it for their projects. Each student chose different themes based on their individual preferences and the end products were vibrant, engaging, and authentic, but most of all creative.

Student Reaction

The students were very excited about their work with Storybird and truly enjoyed being able to have a choice in how to show what they had learned and finding a theme that best suited their own personal interests. In addition to creating and seeing these beautiful books online, you can have them printed into a book and see the story come to life. I was truly amazed the day I opened the package and saw the beautiful books that my students had written and had been prepared by Storybird. Each student’s book had their name on the cover and I had placed an inscription inside the cover, to detail the purpose for creating the book. The students were excited to see their names on the book and enjoyed reading each other’s. I wanted more to add to our classroom library and so I asked the students to share their work with me so more of their books could be printed and displayed in our room.

Since then I have shared their work at conferences and with other colleagues, and the students have proudly shared their work during technology showcases. I recently found out about a few students who had used Storybird to create books for telling a story to a sibling, inviting someone to a homecoming dance and several other really neat uses for Storybird. Technology can really enhance the learning process and benefit students in your classroom, but it is when students extend this learning to other areas and uses, that you realize it truly has made an impact on their learning.

There are many other great tools out there for project based learning. Offering a variety of choices for students enables them to find something meaningful and enjoy the experience. If you have not used Storybird, try it out. Students have used it in many of their other courses after Spanish and have found exactly the theme they needed. I will continue to share some of these tools with you and some examples, as always feel free to send me your comments or questions I would love to hear from you.

Retelling the Story: Kidblog post

April 19, 2016Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Thank you Kidblog, my recent post published April 14, 2016

Retelling the Story: What Comes Next?

APRIL 14, 2016 • RACHELLE DENE POTH •

My prior blog posts have focused on the benefits of blogging for students and teachers in the classroom. Some of these posts included using blogs as a way to encourage students to write freely without fear of mistakes, as a way to build relationships with classmates and the teacher, and as a way to create with a new language and build their vital language skills. In addition to these, there are many ways to use blogs in place of a traditionally used assignment or assessment. It is simple to set up a loose prompt for students and use their blog as a way to assess their learning in relation to topics covered in class, while welcoming creativity.

Retelling the story:

Recently, I have used blogging as a means for students to retell portions of a story that we have been reading in class in a way that helps them better understand the meaning of the book. In my Spanish class, we use leveled readers throughout the year to build our language skills. Sometimes we will discuss the readers in class and other times students may complete a worksheet with comprehension questions. While, these are both great methods to determine what students have learned, they do not allow for student creativity or differentiation. To assure all students have the opportunity to be involved in the discussion, expressing their creative views and offering insights, I have the students blog.

What happens next?

Recently, I assigned the students the task of reading a chapter in the Spanish reader “Amigos Detectives” and asked them to write about what they read. I gave some guiding questions to provide ideas and spark their creativity. In addition to answering some of my questions, I asked the students to either predict what may come next in the story or to create a new title for the current or next chapter. Later, I asked them to create their own chapter and give some of the highlights of what might happen to the main characters. This encourages deeper thinking and creativity, while the blogging medium gives the students an opportunity to share their ideas and opinions on a higher level.

Student example

The benefit:

Giving blog assignments related to a reading has increased the levels of comprehensive reading being done by my students. The requirements given, a summarization, retelling the story, or creating a next chapter, lead to more student involvement in the reading process and makes it more interesting and personal process. Students are able to choose how they demonstrate comprehension of the language, which increases student motivation. Additionally, it provides a great prompt for classroom discussion. Using blogs as the medium enables students to narrate in their own personal way and hopefully have fun in the process.

Blogging provides a more engaging way to have students show what they have learned, to express what interested them, and to create with the language. Students truly enjoy sharing story predictions and choosing our favorites from the newly created titles.

Build Confidence Through Blogging, Edueto post

April 6, 2016Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Build Confidence Through Blogging

Regardless of the course one teaches, or the content being covered, it is important to provide opportunities for students to practice their literacy skills. As a foreign language teacher, I continually seek new, creative ways for my students to practice their reading, writing, speaking and listening skills and in the process, to become more confident in their language usage. Students today often struggle with a fear of speaking in class and of making mistakes. As a teacher, I try to support the students as best as I can by reinforcing that it is natural to make mistakes and it is part of the learning process. I share my own experiences to help build a connection with my students.

But even with these supports, the fear of mistakes continues to limit the willingness of students to participate in class activities. They are afraid to be wrong. I have noticed this is very common among students today and even in my own experience, as a teacher and even now as a graduate student, I experience this fear as well. As a teacher, it is important to provide support and model risk-taking for our students. We must work to find different ways to encourage them to use the language and express themselves, without worrying about mistakes.

So how do we do this?

A great way to involve students in expressing themselves and also to provide valuable feedback to them and to help boost confidence in the process, is through blogging. I decided to try this with my students as an alternate homework assignment, to provide some differentiation and to learn more about the specific needs of my students in the process. Blogging was something that I had recently started and so I thought I would give it a try with my students, as a way to help them be more comfortable in expressing themselves.

Because it is critical for students to practice their language skills, I focused on providing some unique and creative writing prompts that would be a comfortable way for them to start writing and blogging. I set some requirements, such as that they do not use translators, that they simply write their response, cast aside any worries about making mistakes, to just write in Spanish and do their best. I continued to emphasize that making mistakes is a normal part of the learning process and how we improve as a result of having made mistakes. It is important to also share stories of our successes and failures with our students, so they can relate and have the support that they need. So when I started assigning the blogs to my students for homework assignments, I encouraged them to focus on expressing their ideas, to write freely without worrying about the grammar and language accuracy, but rather to focus on using and creating with the language.

The first assignment

The decision to integrate Kidblog as my blogging platform, and to use blogging as a way to encourage my students to write, and create with the language, has had great benefits on their language skills. The tools available for blogging today are similar to what I had done many years ago, with students in my Spanish IV course, who had paper journals. At that time, I set aside ten minutes in class, a few days each week for the students to write a response to a prompt I had written on the board. I tried to come up with a variety of interesting, fun, content related prompts, to help with comfort level but also to have them practice the related vocabulary and verbs we had been studying. While they wrote, I also took the time to write because I wanted to be involved in the process, and it is beneficial for me to work on continued writing as well. Most of the prompts were created by me, but there were days that I left it up to the students, and their fun, creative ideas, led to even better prompts than those which I had created.

I would collect each of their notebooks on Friday, read their responses over the weekend, provide feedback and comments, but they were not graded based on grammatical correctness. I wanted to assess their skills, use the information to guide my instruction, and also quite importantly, use it as a way to understand the students and their interests. As teachers, it is critical to work on building relationships with our students, to better understand their needs and interests, and the journal writing was a great way to accomplishment each of these goals.

On Monday, I would return the journals, and the students would read my comments and try to implement some of the corrections or feedback that I provided into their work for the new week, and build their language skills.

Blogging: What are some of the benefits?

Blogging is a means for teachers to encourage students to express themselves, to be creative, to build literacy skills, to become more confident in their writing, and focus more on sharing their ideas without fear of errors. Blogging helps students to develop their creative side, to have a choice in what they are writing, to become more expressive and to have some individualized instruction. Paper is fine for students to being blogging and the most important thing is that students have the opportunity to blog and use the experience to build their skills in the language or in any area.

But rather than using paper, students and teachers can benefit by using a tool such as Kidblog. The blog can be written using any device for access. Students can personalize their blog by choosing from different templates, fonts, and more. The use of digital tools for blogging is great for tracking student growth and having the writing available, longer than a piece of paper would last. As teachers, and with our students, we can watch the student’s growth and track their progress in writing skills and more, over a period of time, and provides opportunities for self-reflection.

I enjoy creating new prompts for the students to blog about and I encourage them to find blogs of interest to read as well. Reading their entries provides me with valuable information to help guide my instruction, to give them feedback, but more importantly, I can learn more about the interests and needs of each of my students.

If this sounds like an area that might be of benefit to your classroom and your students, then I recommend trying it out. It is a risk, but it is worth it. Blogging might just be the way to open up communication, collaboration and enhance creativity in your classroom. Find your blogging tool and get started. Good luck!

Promote Student Expression through Storytelling

March 19, 2016March 19, 2016Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth 1 Comment

Published on March 17, 2016 by Kidblog. Thankful for the opportunity to be a Blogger for Kidblog.

Promote Student Expression through Storytelling

MARCH 17, 2016 • RACHELLE DENE POTH

Depending on particular class content, concepts, or topics, blogging can have a strong, positive impact on several aspects of the learning process. Recently, I have found that providing students with a short prompt and having them create or tell a story has been extremely beneficial. In doing this, they not only build knowledge and skills in the relevant academic area, but also improve their writing, literacy, and critical thinking skills. In addition to these learning opportunities, blogging also gives students a means to build skills in technology and become reflective writers in the process.

One way to guide students in writing successful stories is to provide them with writing prompts. Typically, I aim to supply a writing prompt focused on a certain theme we have been covering in class. This assignment enables me to provide differentiation in their learning and lends itself to more student creativity and choice. I post a writing prompt related to a recent class lesson or theme and ask the students to be creative with their responses. Being a foreign language teacher, I often provide my students with a few specific elements that I would like the responses to contain. Depending on the content area, these elements range from the use of a specific verb or verb tense, a focus on grammar usage, topic of discussion, specific style of narration, or a method of debating an issue.

One example in a foreign language class may be discussing one’s childhood. By providing a prompt which asks for students to discuss their childhood, they are focused on narrating in the past tense and using specific themed vocabulary. By requiring students to use a few specific verbs in the blog, it helps to guide their practice with an area in which students may be having some difficulty.

Using blogging in this way has helped promote student discussion and creativity and has served as an alternate means for student assessment. It enables teachers to provide reinforcement of specific content in an individualized way that promotes more authentic learning. For students, it provides a unique way to complete a homework assignment, share ideas, and develop critical thinking skills and learning in multiple areas.

Kidblog has been an awesome medium to get students creating and writing in class. One feature of Kidblog that has helped increase engagement for students in any writing prompt and, in some cases, may also be used as a prompt itself, is the ability to add a photo to your post. Using the photo as a focus helps promote discussion and increase curiosity. Kidblog provides students with the option to enhance creativity through the diverse images and formatting choices. Images and customized formatting brings students’ writing to life and provides a way for instruction to be personalized for each student.

Giving students options empowers them in their choice for writing, and leads to a more engaging and fun learning experience.

Recent Blog posted on VISME: Visual Storytelling in the Classroom

February 4, 2016February 5, 2016Dr. Rachelle Dené Poth Leave a comment

Thanks again to Payman Taei and Nayomi for publishing my recent post.

visual-storytelling-in-the-classroom-1024x590

Posted on January 29, 2016 by Rachelle Poth

How to Use Visual Storytelling in the Classroom

image: http://blog.visme.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/visual-storytelling-in-the-classroom-1024×590.jpg

Everybody loves a good story. Whether it is a story you are reading in print, hearing firsthand or retold by another, each unfolds in creative and engaging ways. What all of these have in common is that they are created and presented in a way that is unique and meant to engage the audience.

By infusing one’s personality, individuality and creativity into the story being told, the story takes on a new life. Everyone can have similar experiences; our interpretations of them, however, are unique. Through digital tools, we have numerous possibilities for bringing these interpretations to life.

In the classroom, storytelling occurs on a daily basis. The content delivered to and interpreted by the students is a story. How teachers choose to deliver the content, their presentation style and tools used, can make all the difference in the learning that occurs in the classroom.

The way that students interpret the instruction and show their understanding can be accomplished in so many unique ways. It can come in the form of assessments, the sharing of experiences that spontaneously arise during the lesson or through interpretation of a class discussion or sharing of projects.

These are the same possibilities that can occur in any area of life, stemming from our interactions with one another and our efforts to express a thought, feeling or experience.

Designing your story

image: http://blog.visme.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/16.jpg

In years past, these stories, essays, reflections and authentic creations were shared using paper and other supplies to create a visual representation.

Today, these options still exist and lead to enhanced student engagement and encourage their creativity. But we now have an abundance of digital tools that can provide these same benefits and also help develop vital technology skills required in today’s world.

Having been on both sides, a teacher and a student, I find that I like working with new presentation creation tools. They give me a greater variety of options and, more importantly, the choice of how to best express my thoughts. I appreciate the variety of choices these tools afford to individuals like me, who are not very artistic, and how they enable us to breathe life into our stories.

Project possibilities

image: http://blog.visme.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/32.jpg

I have always liked having possibilities and the freedom to search for tools that meet my needs and interests. I value this freedom of choice greatly for my students as well. Deciding to move toward more personalized instructional opportunities was one of the greatest changes in my classroom that has led to truly amazing benefits for my students as well as for my own professional growth.

image: http://blog.visme.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/21.jpg

One of the reasons I look forward to students’ projects is that by giving them a choice in the type of tool to use, I learn a lot about their interests. They have the freedom to find something that engages them and lets them be creative in their own way. They can express their individuality and in the process of learning and showing what they know and can do, they have fun.

Great examples for storytelling

There are so many choices available for students to create a digital story. For example, as a foreign language teacher, we cover a lot of themes in our courses. I enjoy having my students complete projects to show what they have learned, but I prefer they select their own method of presentation.

A few great ways to incorporate visuals through web tools are to have students design a brochure advertising a store or another similar concept covered in class. With so many add-ons available in the template choices, students can create almost anything. I have had students describe their daily routine using visuals, ranging from infographics with a timeline to comics, animated cartoons and much more.

How can students tell their story?

image: http://blog.visme.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/42.jpg

In my classroom, students often complete a variety of themed projects. Some examples include creating a restaurant scene, a menu, a self-description, a narrative about one’s daily routine and preparing for a special event.

There are so many possibilities for students to create a visual representation of these topics. In addition to working individually, students can work collaboratively on things like the creation of a travel agency or on a food and recipe project; or they can create websites, videos, animated presentations and more.

While the instructions and the rubric for each of these projects are always the same and have the same requirements, it does not make a difference to me how the students choose to convey their information. There are times when I may give them a choice between four or five specific tools for creating an infographic because that is the format that I prefer and a skill I would like them to be able to have.

However, there are also many times when I will give them 20 or more choices–ranging from infographics to cartoons, comics, videos and more–because I want them to feel free to express themselves in a way that meets their needs and interests.

Examples from my classroom

To give a few examples, in Spanish I, students created infographics to talk about their school schedule and were able to use the various icons, font styles and templates to bring their schedule presentation to life. They also created their own menu for a restaurant and had the same capabilities, regardless of which tool they chose to use.

In Spanish II, where the presentations take on more of a narrative and a lengthier description, some of their work includes describing a daily routine or shopping excursion, and with the newer digital tools available, they can add audio, video and choose from a range of icons and other art that is included; they do not have to worry as much about citing their images because it is an all-inclusive tool.

image: http://blog.visme.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/visme-interface-screenshot.jpg

visme interface screenshot Students have also described their city or a city they would like to live in using a cartoon character or an animated comic strip. They have also created videos using their camera and a tool that helps them edit and combine it into a finished product.

In the upper level Spanish courses, where we focus more on communication and collaboration, students have worked together on telling a story using Wikispaces and Kidblog and shared accounts with something like GoAnimate to create videos. It really does help to engage them, and it definitely makes the learning experience more meaningful because they can recall how they chose to portray the information in their own personalized way.

How can this benefit your classroom?

So, if you have a project in mind, think about what the requirements are and how have you assigned the project in the past. What really matters is, “what do you want the students to show you that they know and can do with material that has been covered.” Then think about what has been your traditional way of having the students create something. Do you feel, when you look at their final product, that they are mostly all the same? If so, then using one of the digital tools available is your answer.

image: http://blog.visme.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/5.jpg

Try this: Keep the same requirements but give the students some choices by offering a variety a presentation tools and let them teach you some new things about technology. Also, let them drive their learning, become more engaged and as a result inspire others to do the same.

One thing I have noticed when projects are shared is that in each of the classes, students enjoy seeing each other’s work and having a choice. Another benefit is the relationships that form. Of course, they can go to their teacher, but they can also go to their peers and receive guidance when trying some new presentation tool.

Sometimes students fear new things and are afraid of taking a risk, but experiences that are diverse like this truly help to support students. Digital storytelling encourages creativity; having that choice inspires curiosity and will help to diminish the fear of trying something new.

And finally, it brings a lot of extra diversity and excitement into the classroom. As teachers, we benefit from the extra learning opportunities provided by these tools as well.