Creating Their Presentations
Today, we did an activity that I would have never thought I'd do with a group of Grade 1 and 2 students: we made Presentations on GoogleDocs. Since just before the March Break, we've been learning about feelings as part of a Character Education/literacy activity, so I thought it would be interesting for the students to create their own slideshows on "feelings." The students worked in partners to find appropriate images on Google Images, copy the links, and insert the pictures into their slideshows. Then they wrote sentences and/or captions about each of the feelings.
The activity itself does not seem that complicated, and it really wasn't, but it was the "searching" part of this activity that I was hesitant about. Our Board filters lots of Internet content, but when searching images, it's hard to know what's going to appear. Everything may not be appropriate. Can six- and seven-year-olds deal with this? Will they filter accordingly?
Today was the test, and my students did an outstanding job! The amazing part was sitting back and listening to them create their slideshows. They took this responsibility very seriously. They discussed what images to use, and they immediately let me know if they saw something inappropriate. The students also thought about the target audiences of this slideshow: their parents and the teacher. Even though some of the images were appropriate, I heard the students say that they wouldn't choose them because "Miss Dunsiger might not like them," or "this isn't something we do at school (fighting), so I shouldn't pick this picture." Wow! Today, all of the students showed me just how responsible they can be!
Below are the completed slideshows. I hope that you enjoy them! To help us with this feeling activity, I'd love if you would share what you do when you feel different ways. As I asked the students today: how can we behave our best even when we don't feel our best?
Thanks for your help with this activity!
Aviva
7 comments:
This is great!
I always feel such a rush when my Kinder kids do well on something I thought they were going to struggle with. I think even as teachers we tend to underestimate what they really can do, especially when it involves technology!
Your class projects are great. I love how you describe how engaged they all were and the wonderful conversations that were taking place. Awesome!
Love it! It's a great critical thinking task. Kids needed to think about the photos they would use and if it matched their text. You have me thinking of other ways to use this task, especially in K.
For save photos use www.pics4learning.com or use the Microsoft Office Online gallery.
Angie
@missralston - Thanks for your comment! I absolutely agree with you: today was a rush for me and for the students too! It's amazing what they can do! Glad you liked the post.
Angie - So glad you liked the activity! It definitely did turn out to be a great critical thinking task. As a teacher that taught Kindergarten for 8 years, I can definitely see the value in a modified version of this activity for them!
Thanks too for the links to the safe searching sites. I'll definitely give them a try.
Aviva
Great slideshows!
Love the learning about what's appropriate, too, at an early age.
Thanks Michael! I appreciate that. I think it's an important skill for young students too. They're seeing what's online, so they need to learn how to filter what's online too.
Aviva
A relevant & engaging project, in which the journey was just (if not more) important than the destination). Well done, taking the risk on this. How are you going to teach them about "appropriate" content any other way... To just preach about it without allowing them a chance to access the Web, would have had zero effect.
Thanks for the comment, Nicola! I completely agree. Students need to be able to learn how to make these decisions on their own. We need to teach them to be responsible.
Aviva
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