Teaching & Learning
Teaching & Learning
Language Arts with
Language Arts with
Technology:
Technology:
Building an eBook
Building an eBook
—A Whirlwind
—A Whirlwind
Workshop
Workshop
Experience
The Plan
The Plan
• Quick overview of some +/-’s of
technology
• Building a wordless ebook
• List of sample resources for
Why Use Technology in
Why Use Technology in
Your Instruction?
Your Instruction?
• Engaging & Fun
• Current
• Develops Info Tech skills
• Establishing quality benchmarks for
publishing materials online
• Immerse students in editing for quality
• Unique activities/resources
What Are Some
What Are Some
of the Challenges??
of the Challenges??
• Costs & Access
• Reliability
• Compatibility
• Digital Divide
• Software
• Pro-D
• Safety
– Student personal safety
• documents/information should not make student identifiable
– Link exposure
Why a Wordless Picture eBook (Powerpoint)
Potential Uses
• Create a printed book. – Students could:
• Develop an oral narration; share with others
• Work with on older student (mentor?) to narrate story to that older student scribes onto hardcopy
• Colour it.
– Could also be a project with a parent/guardian • Create an ebook in PPT.
– Students could:
• Develop a story & word process on the slides
– Might want to develop prewriting organizational materials
– Do rough draft on Word or other software
• Narrate orally via PPT’s Slide ShowRecord Voice Narration
– Slides appear--students read them & then advance the slides in their time by hitting Enter to advance. PPT saves the narration and the timing!
Extended Potential Uses for Ebook Activity
•
Create a family-based book.
–
Students could use resized images from family
photos
•
Photos could be digital or scanned in
•
Create an original illustrated book.
–
Students could create original images (or collaborate
with an “illustrator”)
•
Images could be hardcopy & scanned in
Activity: Creating an eBook
1.
Selecting Theme, Brainstorm Images & Prep a
Storage Folder
•
Pick a theme or themes
–
Teacher may suggest or allow students to pick
• Today’s theme: “Pirates”
•
Brainstorm what type of images would suite the
theme & possible plot lines
–
Make a list of 5-10 possible image types that
would support those plots
•
Teacher and/or students could do this
Preparing for Image Storage
2) Prepare a place to store images
–
Use an intuitive name that suits the image or
project
–
For this workshop:
•
Go to your U drive (or other location on
personal computer) & create a folder called
“pirate_images”
•
Right-click in a blank area of the drive &
select New then Folder
Finding Images
3) Search for necessary images
(This has been done for you, but if you had to do it here are the steps)
– Determine a sufficient number of images (eg. 3,4,5)
– Teacher could prelocate images & provide links or students could find own
– Finding images (don’t do this; I have preset images for this activity)
• Go to Google
• Click on Images
• Click on Advanced Image Search at the right of the text bar
• Collect the URL (addresses) if providing links to others
– Note: Images are also available through PPT or Word clip-art—we’ll try that route after
Image Issues
•
Copyright issues
–
Find uncopyrighted images (old pictuers,
Creative Commons licensed images, etc.)
–
Request permission to use by contacting
image owner
•
If colour printing an issue:
–
Colour images can be converted to grayscale
during printing.
–
Can stick to black & white or grayscale images
in Google (specify this in a Google Image
Working with Images
4) Working with prelocated images & provided links
–
Provide a process & instruction sheet or
electronic resource for students to visit the
necessary links
•
If you’re having students find their own
images (or with a mentor/adult), specify the
number of images you want.
Your Instructions for Locating
Images
– Download these 6 pictures from which to build a story— with a beginning, middle and end in mind. (You’ll be
renaming them with names that make sense for this project and their use.)
• Go to the image at http://
beej.us/pirates/pirate_view.php?file=
pyle_rollingondeck.jpg Right-click on the image.
Select “Save File As”. Change the name to “pirate” & save to your “pirate_images” file on the U drive (or other place on your computer you would like it)
• Go to the image at http://
beej.us/pirates/pirate_view.php?file=guinea.jpg & repeat as above to save as “map” to pirate_images on your U drive.
• Go to the image at http://
Locating Remaining Images
• Go to the image at http://
beej.us/pirates/pirate_view.php?file=spandutc.jpg & repeat as above to save as “battle” to pirate_images on your U drive.
• Go to the image at http://
beej.us/pirates/pirate_view.php?file=
pyle_meeting.jpg & repeat as above to save as “divvy_loot” to pirate_images on your U drive.
• Go to the image at http://
beej.us/pirates/pirate_view.php?file=bartdnr.jpg & repeat as above to save as “celebration” to
pirate_images on your U drive.
Organizing & Starting PPT Draft
• Determine a rough narrative flow for the images
– Teacher can provide or students can create
• For this activity:
– piratemap shipbattletreasuredivvy
lootcelebration
• Pick one type of project end product
– affects what you create now & steps you follow—you can build both types, but we don’t have time now)
– Select print book or eBook project
• Open a new PowerPoint document to create the wordless storybook as a new Blank document.
– Under “Content Layout,” select the blank option
PPT Drafting Story “Pages”:
Images
5) Creating “Page” with Image & Text
•
Find main PPT Menu
•
Select Insert
Picture
from file
•
Navigate to the pirate_images folder on the U
drive
•
Select “pirate” image
•
Resize the image so it fits about ½ of the slide
vertically.
–
Click on the image. (You should now see
little squares around the border.)
–
Click & drag one from the corner to make
the picture smaller.
–
Make it a reasonable size so text (and/or
more pictures) can be added to the page
•
Move & place the picture on the slide where
PPT Drafting Story “Pages”: Text
•
Create a text box next to it
–
Make sure the Drawing tool bar is active
first:
»
Go to View
Toolbars
make sure
Drawing is checked.
–
Select the square boxed icon with the
“A” in the upper left & a series of lines
“Pages” for Print vs. eBook
– For Printed Project: You will need to create some lines in this text box using the underscore key.
• Note: There is a QUICK way to create a print version with lines, but we need to build the skills if you’d like to create an eBook later (Instructions for this at the end of the activity.)
• Enter about as many lines as you want need.
• Space them for the scale of your students’ writing under FormatLine Spacing.
– For an eBook project, type in the text box “Add Words Here”
• Optional if time permits: you can set the text font, colour, size, etc.
– If not highlighted, click on the text box to select it.
– Go to the Format menu at the top and select “Text Box”. – Click on Colours & Lines and choose a line colour and
More “Pages”
6) Create remaining “Pages”
•
Create a new slide: Insert
New
Slide
select the blank Content Layout
again.
•
Insert
Picture
from file
navigate to the
pirate_images folder on the U drive and
select “map”; resize & move; create text box;
create new slide
•
Insert
Picture
from file
navigate to the
pirate_images folder on the U drive and
select “ship”; resize & move; create text box;
create new slide
•
Insert
Picture
from file
navigate to the
Using PPT Clip Art
7) Adding the treasure/chest from PPT’s Clip Art
–
From the top menu in your PPT document select
Insert
Picture
Clip Art
•
(If the box appears with “Add Clips to
Organizer” click on “Later”)
–
In the search field enter “treasure” or “treasure
chest” and click on “Search”
–
Scroll through quickly & quickly pick an image in
the interests of time.
•
Later, if you want a wider selection, you can
click on “Clips Online” at the bottom of the
search panel and find more options—but leave
that for another day.
Create Remaining “Pages”
8) Create remaining new slides—using the blank
Content Layout.
–
Insert the remaining pictures in each new slide
•
Insert
Picture
from file
navigate to the
pirate_images folder on the U drive and
select “divvy_loot”; resize & move; create
text box; create new slide
•
Insert
Picture
from file
navigate to the
pirate_images folder on the U drive and
Optional Title “Page”
9) Create a Title Slide(Students working with printed copy could create their own title page manually)
• InsertNew Slide select the first choice in “Text
Layouts” at upper left that shows two grey bars
• For Printed Project:
– Create a line in the Title box using the underscore key.
– Type “By”; hit Enter and on the next line make a line for students to write their name by using the
underscore key again.
• For an eBook Project:
– In the first text box, type “Add Title Here”.
– In the second text box, type “By” then on another line “Your name Here”
Move “Title Page” to Front, Credits, End
Page
10) Moving Title Page to front of “book”
• Either in “Slides” tab if visible on the left or using ViewSlide Sorter; click on the Title Page slide and drag it to the head of the slide
Save eBook & Printing
•
Save this eBook to your U: drive
–
Call it “pirate_ebook”
•
Printing (we’re not doing this now…)
–
File
–
When the dialogue window appears:
»
At bottom left under Print What, select
Slides
»
Set Color at either grayscale,
black/white, or whatever you want
»
Set Slides per Page: from 1-4
depending on how large you want the
images & text areas
Working with the eBook
•
Create the printed book & provide copies to
students to complete as per your plan.
•
Share the electronic file with students to
complete the ebook in PPT.
•
Students could share their work in pairs,
groups, classes, with the whole school, other
schools, etc. either in hardcopy or
electronically.
•
You could create a class anthology—maybe a
yearly—and have it produced as a chapbook
via your school photocopier.
•
Publishing for public consumption—secure
Want to Share Your Work?
•
If you would like to complete an
ebook (including text—and audio)
to share it with others in this
class, please email the PPT file to
me and I can create a gallery.
Your email should include:
Useful Electronic Resources
This will be posted online next week…BC Language Arts IRPs
From BC Min. of Education. Language Arts K-12 Integrated Resource Packages
BC Language Arts Prescribed Learning Outcomes
From BC Min. of Education Prescribed learning outcomes for
Language Arts K-12. Page organized by subject area. Scroll down the page for Language Arts.
BC Teachers of English/Language Arts
A provincial specialist association of the BCTF. Links to membership, resources, events and the listserve.
Language Arts Course Links
From Jean Tonski & Virginia MacCarthy, Malaspina
University-College. List of links to Faculty of Education Language Arts relevant sites. Organized by topics—e.g. general, listening & speaking,
Between the Lions
Companion site for the PBS series for 4-7 year olds. Series “gives young viewers a chance to have meaningful and manageable
reading experiences, by using key words in simple, decodable, connected text onscreen. The program also reinforces
high-frequency "sight" words to help children become more comfortable with reading”. Site includes games, video clips, mobile downloads (audio, video), games and an area for parents & teachers.
Scholastic Teacher Resources
From the publisher, Scholastic. Lesson plans, strategies, tools, printables, and promotions. Also a special “New Teacher” tab with support areas organized by grade levels. Another area offers
Scholastic Online Interactive Clifford
From Scholastic. Site focus on Clifford character books. Includes interactive storybooks, phonics activities, games, and stories for early readers. Check out “Make a Word” (audio) a game where
players drag and drop vowels into spaces between consonants to see if they make words. Also take a look at Sound Match
PIKA: The Canadian Children's Literature Database
From Libraries & Archives Canada. Database search tool for
Canadian children’s literature. Includes National Library of Canada's collection of 35 000 Canadian children's books, searchable by
subject headings and providing summaries. Canadian Poetry Archive
Canadian Poetry
From University of Toronto Library. Links to Canadian poets,
events, poetry sites, poetry courses, awards/competitions, presses, biographies and more.
Children's Literature Web Guide
From David Brown at the University of Calgary. Internet resources related to books for children & young adults. Lists of award winning books & best sellers, discussion boards, authors on the web,
teachers resources, parent resources and more. Children's Picture Book Database
From Miami University. Bibliography for designing literature-based thematic units for all disciplines, including health education.
Citation Style Guides
From Karla Tonella, University of Iowa. Compilation of links to various citation styles.
CyberGuides
From San Diego County of Education, Calif. A K-12 collection of teacher guides & student activities on “core works of literature”
(according to the Calif. Language Arts curriculum) organized by age groups. The “Activity Bank” link from main page provides graphic organizers, journaling and rubrics for teachers and students. Note due to cutbacks there is a notice re. possibilities of broken links— you can email them to remove it.
Educational Resources in English/Language Arts (from CLN )
Clearinghouse on English, Reading and Communication
From the Indiana University School of Education. Links to lesson plans and other sites with lesson plans, literacy resources & research, online phonic course from Dr. Carl B. Smith, ERIC digest & bibliography searches for research, & more…
The Literacy Web
From the University of Connecticut. Includes websites, webquests, lesson plans, technology integration, ProD, literacy standards, literature & online applications. Check this site map for quick access to resources by age groups. Includes resources for K-12, special needs, ESL, & Adult Ed.
WIER Writers in Electronic Residence
From the Canadian Education Association, University of Toronto, etc.
ACE Writing
From Michelle Bergey. Resource site for ways to improve writing skills. Includes links to word games & lesson plans. Check
Professor Pen’s Resources for Young Writers. Neighbourhood Heroes project
From non-profit org. started by former Toronto broadcaster, Bill
Robinson. Stories about people making a positive impact on others’ lives. Includes area for special stories on students. Includes link to webquest for students to identify their own neighbourhood hero.
StoneSoup Magazine
Story Arts Online
From author Heather Forest, New York. Site dedicated to
storytelling. Links to lesson plans, student activities, articles, teacher sharing area, newletter and more.
The Writing Den
From Act360 Media, company from Richmond, BC, Canada. Site geared to grades 6-12. Focus on improving reading, comprehension, and writing skills. 3 difficulty levels: Words (vocabulary/prononuciation), Sentences (comprehension/listening) & Paragraphs (writing skills). Audio clips for Words and Sentences. Provides Teacher Guide for using site. Sign-up for
Word of the Day
The Young Writers Club
From non-profit organization founded by David Davenport. Provides writing activities, a place for young writers share their work,
book/film reviews, research projects, word of the week
subscriptions. Check out the Storybooks where young writers
Biography Maker
From Jamie Mackenzie, Bellingham Public Schools. Website to help
students elicit biographical information and write interesting biographies.
For Creating Activity Sheets, Worksheets, etc.
Discovery School Puzzle Maker
Discovery School Worksheet Generator E.L. Easton English Exercises
Links to variety of activities for English. Personal Educational Press
Free worksheet generator CueCard
Free & great application to build electronic flash cards with text, images &/or sound.
Adventure Maker
Some Planning Links
Curriki
Non-profit organization providing an Open Source
Curriculum (OSC) repository. Content includes lesson plans, assessments & activities. Materials contributed from teachers around the world. Check out the
Language Arts search
The Educator's Reference Desk
From the Information Institute of Syracuse, NY. Website
with resource Discovery Education Lesson Plan Library
Crayola Lesson Plans (requires registering) Collaborative Lesson Plan Archive
TeacherVision: Lesson Planning Center
HotChalk’s Lesson Plans Page: Language Arts Lesson Plan Search: Reading Lessons
Lesson Plan Search: Writing
Feedback Form
Please take the time to complete my workshop feedback form. I take all your comments under advisement to improve each workshop
that I deliver for Education classes.
Please do not put your name on the form—unless you would like me to follow-up with you regarding any questions you might have
Great Work!
Congratulations: You have downloaded images from the Internet, used PPT’s clip-art, created a wordless ebook, & received some electronic
resources for other Language Arts technology integration skills! Give yourself a pat on the back!
Well done…
Further questions? See me: Julia Hengstler
Education Technology Technician Email: hengstlej@mala.bc.ca
Office: Bldg 356-223 Hours: Mon. 9:30-1:30
