Composing and Presenting
Digital tools provide a wide variety of ways to compose and present information. Digital media allow for collaboration, publishing for authentic audiences, and expressing abstract concepts visually. Related anchor common core standards include:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7
Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.2
Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.5
Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.
Digital tools provide a wide variety of ways to compose and present information. Digital media allow for collaboration, publishing for authentic audiences, and expressing abstract concepts visually. Related anchor common core standards include:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7
Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.2
Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.SL.5
Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.
Composing and presenting with comics
Comic Creator
The comic creator interactive from read*write*think is very simple and can be used by young children. For older students, try Pixton. There are several effective comic generators available on the web, but today we will show you a quick and easy one. Comic generators are excellent tools for storyboards, instructions, reflections, dialogs, language practice, definitions and explanations, creative writing, mapping plots from complex works, creating alternate endings to stories, and so much more. Features
|
composing and Presenting with infographics
Infogr.am
This tool is a linear infographic creator. It is free, and it is very easy to use. Infographics are simply visual representations of data. You have probably seen many of these even if you did not know what they were called. They can be used in many ways, and they help learners practice visual thinking. If you are still confused about the concept of infographics, see Kathy Schrock's infographics guide for several examples. We personally think Infogr.am is very easy to use, but some other popular ones include easelly and visual.ly. Features
Resources Infogr.am gallery Infogr.am blog A sample infographic made in Infogr.am is below. |
Although we won't have time in this workshop to experiment with every wonderful composing and presenting tool, we wanted to include a few more examples of this very important category of tools.
Poster My Wall offers a free web poster creator (and a fee for printed ones): http://www.postermywall.com/index.php/p/poster-maker. If you are interested, here is a job aid I made for another professor's class: Poster My Wall Job Aid Smore creates a beautiful online flyer that can be used for presentations, assignment instructions, or collaborative projects: https://www.smore.com/ Glogster is an interactive, multi-media web poster creator. There is a free version available, too. Students can embed video, audio, photos, and text on their Glogs. Glogster Education: http://edu.glogster.com/ A sample interactive infographic is below the gaming infographic. |
composing and presenting with digital stories
Digital Stories
Digital storytelling has been been well researched and is widely accepted. There are so many tools available that it is difficult to decide which will best suit your needs. We have found Photopeach to be easy for students to use. However, I don't use it exclusively as there are many others with excellent features. Many educators prefer Animoto. I'm providing a link to another web site that will show several tools, including Photopeach. This web site takes the simple story of how a man came to own a dog and tells it through 50 different digital story tools. It's a fascinating review of new media. Resources Dominoe's 50 Ways to Tell a Story:
|
Composing and Presenting with animation
GoAnimate!
This quick animation tool is a great way to help students work through difficult texts and concepts. They can create a dialog between two historical or literary figures. They can explain a concept or create a story. This tool can also be used for role playing, explaining concepts, exploring issues, and so on. In this example, a student explored the use of ethos, logos, and pathos in the television series The Walking Dead: Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate for Schools. |
Features
Resources
|
Presenting with word clouds
Word Clouds
Word clouds are great editing tools and text exploration tools. Word clouds rearrange text showing the most frequently used words as the largest. For example, when revising a paper, I have students drop their text into a word cloud to see the frequency of word uses. For sociology, it might be interesting to grab text from the news or a web site, drop it into a word cloud, and see if there is a gender bias. The possibilities for inspiring thought are endless. Here are two word cloud generators:
The sample tagxedo cloud was created with the text of Dylan Thomas's poem "Fern Hill." |