Project+Ideas

Project Ideas For Your Classroom
You can integrate creative technology tools into almost every topic in your curriculum. To help you get started, here are some common curriculum topics and ideas for technology projects that support these topics.

**Language Arts**
Biography– Students study a historical figure, such as a scientist, politician, inventor, or explorer, and create a biographical essay, web site, or video for that person. Frames, ImageBlender, Pixie, Twist, WebBlender New Book Cover Designs– Students apply what they know about character, plot, setting, symbolism, and conflict to design and create a new book cover for a title they have read. ImageBlender, Pixie, Twist Fairy Tales, Myths, Legends, Tall Tales, and Fables– After studying the elements of these types of tales, students write and illustrate a modern version, or create their very own story. Frames, Pixie, MediaBlender, WebBlender Persuasive Writing– Students practice writing persuasively and create bookmarks, posters, or public service announcements on a health, environmental, or safety issue. Frames, ImageBlender, Pixie, Twist

**Math**
Real World Geometry– Students use a digital camera and paint tools to identify shapes, angles, and symmetry they find around their school. ImageBlender, Pixie Fractions– Students illustrate and animate fractions using everyday objects like apples, oranges, and chocolate pieces. Frames, ImageBlender, Pixie, Twist Measurement: Design a Dream Room– Working with measurement, grids, and 2-dimensional representations of objects, students design their dream bedroom. ImageBlender, Pixie, Twist Word Problems– Students illustrate their own multiplication word problems to help them visualize abstract concepts. ImageBlender, Pixie, Twist, WebBlender

**Science**
Life Cycles– Students choose a plant or animal and describe each stage in its life cycle with text, illustrations, or by animating the process. Frames, ImageBlender, Pixie Biomes– Students create their own postcards or web site tours highlighting plants and animals of a biome they have studied. ImageBlender, Pixie, Twist, MediaBlender, WebBlender Chemistry– Students create models of elements and molecules and demonstrate how structure affects behaviors such as bonding. Twist, Frames, WebBlender Rainforest– Students create a fictional journal that documents the places they visit and the species they encounter on an imaginary trip to the rainforest. Pixie, MediaBlender, WebBlender Disease– Students create diagrams and animations that demonstrate what they know about how viruses and bacteria attack the body and how to prevent the spread of disease. Frames, ImageBlender, Pixie Solar System– Students learn about the planets as they create a virtual travel tour through the solar system. Pixie, MediaBlender, WebBlender

**Social Studies**
Ancient Civilizations– Students research an ancient civilization and create a news broadcast or newspaper from that time period. Frames, MediaBlender, WebBlender Map Skills– Students create geographic, regional, and economic maps for the state in which they live. ImageBlender, Pixie, Twist Native Americans– Students create illustrated blocks, posters, or stories about the homes, tools, food, clothing, and transportation for a Native American tribe. ImageBlender, Pixie, Twist Global Culture– Students research a different country and create a web site or video that provides information for people who are traveling there, including history, geography, food, and more. Frames, MediaBlender, WebBlender

**Digital Storytelling**
Digital storytelling can be very powerful for students, addressing various types of learning styles and modalities. Digital storytelling provides meaning to learning through the use of auditory, visual and kinesthetic skills. Students are required to use higher–order thinking skills in the creation of their stories. Digital storytelling can be used in the classroom in a myriad of ways. Telling personal stories helps students learn about voice in a narrative form, as well as first–person perspective. Since modern communication involves “writing” with pictures and music, having students create digital stories helps them build these critical skills. You can also use digital storytelling to address curriculum areas beyond language arts and media literacy. For example, students can retell an event from the life of a famous person they are studying to help us understand why this person acted the way they did. They can take the voice of a drop of water and show its progression through the water cycle or path through a watershed. Younger students can become an animal and discuss habitat, food, predation, and other life cycle issues. Public service announcements can be used as both a persuasive writing exercise and a way to address science content, such as health or conservation. Frames, Pixie Language Arts: Biographies, Video Poetry, Myths and Legends Math: Using Logic to Solve Problems, Geometry in the World around Us, Math Helps Us Do… Science: Journey through the Life Cycle, An Animal’s Perspective, Birth of an Invention Social Studies: Eyewitness to History, Community Tours, Veteran Interviews [|www.recipes4success.com/digitalstorytelling]

**Digital Portfolios**
An electronic or digital portfolio is a computer-based collection of student performances over time. Portfolios are very common in the visual arts, where skill and expertise cannot be captured by a number and must be shown in performances. Portfolios are a useful educational assessment tool for educators incorporating authentic projects into the curriculum. Students should choose the content of their portfolios with the clear understanding that the performances included should not necessarily be the best performance, but rather demonstrate achievement of a particular objective or show clear growth. The content should also demonstrate a wide range of skills and abilities, and provide a clear demonstration of student ability. Authoring programs provide students with tools to compile digital portfolios. Using these tools, students can create portfolios that demonstrate performances using text, sound, graphics, and video, making them highly representative of a varied body of work. Student self-reflections can be recorded, as can oral presentations, dramatic performances, musical compositions, and more. The digital nature of electronic portfolios makes them easy to retrieve, to store, and to share. MediaBlender, WebBlender

**Resources That Can Help**
[|www.thecreativeeducator.com] Creative Educator magazine features articles on project-based learning, stories from educators, high-level lesson ideas, software tips, and more. [|www.recipes4success.com/lessons] The lessons at Recipes4Success include a step-by-step process for teachers and students, downloadable templates and examples, links to tutorials and references, and correlations to standards. [|tradingpost.tech4learning.com] Want to find new ideas? Search the Trading Post for Pixie Activities, WebBlender templates, Twist designs, and more, or share your own lesson ideas! [|www.pics4learning.com] Pics4Learning contains over 20,000 free copyright-friendly pictures you can use in educational projects.