There are many ways to liven up your classroom. Some things that could need changing are the decor, teaching methods, or lesson plans. One specific way to update these things is to use Pinterest. This app is very popular. I have been a user for about four years now.
Nowadays, there are so many ways to use this app for teaching. I have a board dedicated to my future classroom. That includes seating arrangements, decorations, themes, and many more ways to make my room more welcoming to students. There are also many pinners out there who have collections of pins for lesson plans which are fun to use. I have also found many get-to-know-you activities for the first few days of class.
This week, I have used Pinterest to jump-start an idea for a Project Based Learning (PBL) lesson for my future students. This project uses some technology to help students better understand a story of their choosing. But the whole idea originated using Pinterest.
Lately I have noticed more and more infographics appearing on the popular page of Pinterest. Infographics are basically just fancy graphic organizers like what anyone can create in Microsoft Word. However, this format uses more colors and pictures than a standard graphic organizer. They are unique ways to convey information and / data. So I thought that it would make a great PBL lesson for my students.
For this project, I did it myself to see just how hard it was to complete. The hardest part was finding a website that would allow me to make an infographic for free. Even though I did find a website, my alternate resources could have been Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or Adobe Photoshop. But, Docs and Word really would not have been the best choices because they would probably come out too plain. (Also I tend to have a hard time aligning pictures freely in Word). Long story short, I did find a website, http://easel.ly/, and it works great for a free infographic maker.
Now, I did not make an account for this site because I did all of the work in one sitting and had no reason to save my progress while working on it. So here are the steps I used to complete my Literary Infographic Project.
Step 1: Choose a story that you want to base your infographic on. For this project I would allow students to pick between using themes, characters, or plots. I chose to do my example over Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
Step 2: Go to http://easel.ly/
Step 3: Pick a template or click "start fresh". I found that clicking "start fresh" works better because you don't have to waste time by deleting the text off of the templates.
Step 4: Choose a background, insert shapes, add text, add pictures, and fill out whatever information that you want on your infographic. This website is really easy to use.
Step 5: Go to the download tab and click PDF. From here, you can choose to print and / or save your infographic.
And here is my lovely finished project.
This project is fairly simple and uses technology. Making an infographic can be as complex as you want it to be. It is a really great way for students to express their creativity while learning about a literary text.
I have attached a link to the actual assignment template that I would use in my classroom for this PBL lesson below.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SxDT1QZX0ZamNvrCRvJIXW3WiW65HhN9Z-Aq14E5m-8/edit?usp=sharing
Until next time,
-Kaitlynn
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