Our Avatars, Put into Action
This week students continued their work with Google Slides as they explored some of amazing features it offers. They will use their new skills and avatar to create and publish a digital story. For a quick preview of their avatars or to see some new editions, and there will be more, see my post on "Google Slide Features." Although the fifth and sixth graders told stories in different ways their engagement and creativity soared. This is why we teach!
While making their avatars, students explored toolbar buttons, menu bar dropdown lists, tried a few right-clicks and utilized some shortcut keys. There are many means to the same end. Check out the graphic below to see the objects and the tools that we explored.
Short descriptions of some of the favorites are included here:
Zoom for narrowing in on small details or to see the big picture.
Paint Format, a hidden gem lets you copy the properties of one object (a shape or text) and apply them to another of the same kind.
So many Shapes, the rectangle oval, trapezoid, callouts and donut shapes. Spoiler alert! You can enter text directly into any shape. You DO NOT need to place a text box over the shape. Word Art yes, text, not necessary.
Line button. It takes some practice but the curve and polyline tools are a big hit! My goodness they are creative.
Crop (and Mask) to manipulate the image sizes using gutters to make them fit like a true comic.
Fill Color & Borders were helpful for our avatars when making hair, tie-dyes, and other materials.
What We Learned, a Summary, and Some Examples
To help my remote students keep track of their Code.org exit ticket entries, I had to roll up my sleeves and dive into a new tool that I started to explore last spring, Data Studio. Their Data Studio report link can be found in our Google Classroom. Connected directly to their school gmail account, this report shows a log of any submitted exit tickets for the Code.org asynchronous activities. This link ONLY WORKS for the students in my classes when they use their school accounts.
Remote students have just started working on their avatars. We are making great progress but have a ways to go. Stayed tuned and check back to see new additions to our avatar poster in the coming week. Next up students will work on their comics.
My hybrid students continued work in Google Slides, fine tuning their avatars before they set to work on their short stories.
In fifth grade students used their Google Slide Avatars to create comics with a focus on our FAB Classroom Constitution. My Founding Students developed and discussed ideas instrumental in writing our 3 articles. Ask them about these 3 simple but powerful ideals.
Although the comics are still a work in progress they look fantastic and I can't wait to share them with you! #Ah-mazing #LooksProfessional! #FutureGraphicNovelist
In sixth grade students dreamed about a place that they might go if there were no restrictions, e.g. school, money, health, etc. Their job was to create a 1 page comic to share this location and why it was special. In addition to some specific requirements, they needed one image with a citation that included key details like their search word(s) and the direct link to their chosen image. This was an extension of our discussion on copyright and the need to credit someone else's work if not their own and used in a school project.
Today we started to talk about coding and robotics. We will dive deeper into this topic next week when we explore the Root robot simulator. We are really excited!
You're putting in a lot of effort - thank you. I appreciate getting to see successful results of the students putting their learning to work, not just getting to read about what the lessons cover.
ReplyDeleteThank you! They are doing a fantastic job and we are having a lot of fun!
DeleteYou're putting in a lot of rewarding effort. Thank you for sharing the details of the lessons, and especially for showing the results of the students' application their learning useful skills.
ReplyDelete