Thing 8: Visual Learning

StandardsAddressing the NETS-T: 1. Facilitate and Inspire Student Learning and Creativity a,c; 2. Design and Develop Digital Age Learning Experiences and Assessments a, c; 3. Model Digital Age Work and Learning a, b, c, d; 4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility b; 5. Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership b, cCITW 9: Setting Objectives/Providing Feedback; Nonlinguistic Representations; Summarizing& Notetaking; Cues, Questions, Advance Organizers; Generating and Testing HypothesesSee examples for using these tools in the Crosswalk standards document.

21 Things Hands-On Activity and Assignment:

1. Before beginning this "Thing", complete the Pre-Assessment of your technology proficiency. 2. Use at least two of the resources provided (Popplet, bubbl.us, or gliffy) and create similar content projects with each. Take a screen shot and place it in your portfolio.3. Create a word cloud using Wordle or Tagxedo by pasting in the text from your reflection. Copy it and include it in the portfolio.4. Create a QR Code for use in the classroom and place a screenshot of it in your reflection. 5. Write a paragraph on how these tools can be helpful in your setting and different ways you might use it with students and/or peers.6. After completing all of the activities for this "Thing", take the Post-Assessment of your technology proficiency for this "Thing".

Popplet.com

In Classrooms That Work, one of the instructional strategies –sometimes referred to as the “Marzano Nine” that was shown to be valid and reliable in meta analysis studies is the use of graphic organizers. Ideas that can be represented graphically provide the student with a clarity and understanding of how ideas relate, what ideas or concepts are super ordinate and which are subordinate. Graphic organizers also can give the direction of movement or progress from one concept to another. In my EDL 516 course at Marygrove, I teach my students about the continuum of economic theory from communism on the left extreme and capitalism on the right extreme. There are five major elements or concepts from either extreme: Communism, (Karl Marx), Government Intervention (John Maynard Keynes), Liberal (John Kenneth Galbraith), Conservative (Milton Friedman), and Capitalism (John Smith). Using the tool called Popplet from www.popplet.com , I created a graphic organizer showing each of these five major economic theories and the point-of view of each of the five on “role of government,” “educational perspective,” “taxes,” “property,” and “vantage point in history.” I use this in Managerial Finance to emphasize to students that they will serve stakeholders in most communities who represent the views

of one or more of these major points-of-view. Avoiding a dogmatic allegiance to one of the other can be a precarious position for an education leader; however, respecting the differences and distinctions of each can be an asset in communicating with a diversity of community perspectives.

Another graphic organizer available to help illustrate how ideas are related is the www.gliffy.com site. I used this to illustrate a point about writing for a class befuddled with grammar terminology. I point out using the graphic that “all writing is about predicating subjects.” Whether the author writes a sentence, a paragraph, an essay or even a long book, the job of the writer is to predicate subjects so they statements are clear. What is the writing talking about is the SUBJECT. What the subject is or does is the PREDICATE. The writer can become more specific about narrowing down exactly what the subject is using words, phrases or clauses to describe precisely which person or thing he or she is talking about. The writer can become more specific about what he or she wants to say this subject is (was or will be) or what the subject does (did or will do) by also using words, phrases or clauses that descbribe how, when, where, or why the subject is or does whatever the predicate indicates.

www.gliffy.com

As an English teacher for juniors in high school for many years, I taught Shakespeare’s Macbeth and would have my student analyze the famous soliloquy of Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28) in which Macbeth contemplates life now that he is informed that Lady Macbeth has committed suicide. I decides to use this soliloquy to create a Wordl to use as the cover of our study guide for studying this play:

Unfortunately my computer is blocking the java script that I need to convert the soliloquy into a Wordl graphic. I want to be able to insert these lines into Wordl but will need to get some tech help on how to enable java.

She should have died hereafter;There would have been a time for such a word.Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,To the last syllable of recorded time;And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!Life's but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and furySignifying nothing.

Also the website Tagxedo.com allows us to create a similar word cloud of the soliloquy of Macbeth giving it an appropriate shape because MacBeth is expressing his feeling of chaos and torment now that his LOVE has committed suicide driven by her guilt over killing King Duncan:

In the next visually engaging production, I have used the QR Code to represent MacBeth’s soliloquy in Spanish:

This QR Code is a video from youtube of Ian McKellen’s performance of the Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow soliloquy of MacBeth.

I also captured with the use of www.Vozme.com the reading of MacBeth’s soliloquy:

At the URL: http://vozme.com/text2voice.php?lang=en I captured this computer reading. I was very disappointed with the poor quality of the speech and thought the language sounded terribly garbled.

The advantage of using websites such as Google Translate, Vozme.com, QR Readers, Wordle, Popplet, gliffy, and Bubblus, in teaching all give the power of the visual to complement what can be presented to students orally. The cliché, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” is reinforced with the images made possible and visually appealing through these technology tools. English teachers have used mindmaps for brainstorming ideas for essay writing for a long time; however, the advantage made possible with popplet and bubbles and gliffy make this activity even more dynamic. The ability to move about on the map and enlarge or zoom in and out makes the map almost like a Prezi show. The use of the QR reader for sharing a video clip or giving a translation with the assistance of the iPhone helps to make a quick link to YouTube recordings of important passages in Shakespeare. I imagine many of these tools might add to what I learned at the Macul Online Conference last week in the session on iBooks Author by using these much like the widgets in that program. All of these marvelous tools make learning more fun and engaging and relevant to students by capturing their visual learning strengths.

Thing 9 Copy Right and Creative Commons