Design Principles For Students As They Create Visual Projects And Digital Stories

Source: DesignMantic (click for full-size image)

Students are producing more projects than ever before. The proliferation of visual apps and the access to easy tech tools have allowed learners to create all sorts of digital stories and custom graphics. Yet, as Marvel Comics teaches us, with great power comes great responsibility.

It is tempting to assume that because children are growing up in a visual world, they automatically know how to decode and encode optical inputs. This proficiency is known as graphicacy, which is the key to visual thinking in a differentiated classroom. If educators are going to ask students to design posters and slideshows, then they also need to guide young learners in the skills of effective design. Any teacher who has seen children layer neon pink fonts on top of vertiginous purple backgrounds knows that kids don't innately grasp the keys to clean layouts.

Source: DesignMantic (click for full-size image)

The logo design firm DesignMantic has published a series of extremely helpful infographics to help budding artists generate successful visuals. Even though these placards are intended for marketing and business purposes, they perfectly suit the needs of teachers looking for classroom resources.

DesignMantic's graphic of the "15 Golden Principles Of Visual Hierarchy" marches through a framework for art and imagination. As the firm notes:

"Visual hierarchy ... offers to your eyes visual assistance, suggesting to them, what information to linger on to, as your vision glides through it. It lays down a path for the data to flow in, to get absorbed into the brain smoothly. It guides the human eye from one element of the data to the next, like an invisible pointer moving through the data, to keep the reader free of any visual fatigue."

Source: DesignMantic (click for full-size image)

The company also offers a primer in "The 10 Commandments Of Visual Communication." Much like its tenets for quality logos, these guidelines range from line and font choices to arrangement and sizing tips. In essence, it provides "a layperson’s handbook of visual communication." It reminds us of similar advice from "The Design Of Project-Based Learning - Color Theory For Web 3.0."

Visualizing The Future Of Apps In Education

Source: Clint Stephens

Even though iPads offer a lot of flexibility in learning, finding the right app can sometimes be a frustrating barrier to using them in the classroom. Often, as this article from Edudemic explains, schools focus only on "content" or "subject-specific" apps, without realizing that open-ended tools such as Visualize or Educreations can be incorporated into any curriculum.

One of the most helpful and illuminating resources for identifying appropriate educational apps is this mind-blowing Prezi from Regional Technology Integration Specialist Clint Stephens of the Southwest Educational Development Center. Entitled "60 Educational Apps In 60 Minutes," this visually stunning layout offers a full tour of relevant iOS tools for teachers. Organized into four categories of "Fun Time," "Productivity Time," "Core Time," and "General Ed Time," each recommendation includes an image, a description, and actual screen caps from the interface. Even if you have no interest in tablets or 1:1 devices, this Prezi is worth a look as an epitome of both information design and painstaking preparation.


Another targeted site with suggestions of iPad apps is "Teach With Your iPad." This wiki offers a thorough list of possible tools, organized clearly by subject and grade level in an easy-to-read table. It also includes a few recommended "starter" apps at the bottom.

"15 iPad Skills Every Teacher And Student Should Have" also presents a roster of recommended resources. For each of the 15 categories, the article offers the best apps to use with students in the classroom.

Librarians, Technology, And The New Literacies

Source: ASIDE, 2013

The role of librarians in modern schools is more crucial than ever. In an age of dynamic information and media streams, librarians are uniquely positioned to guide students in research and storytelling tools.

A librarian's role is also evolving as "literacy" in its traditional sense is changing. It's not just that e-readers have joined classic texts, or that online sources have joined traditional journals. It is much more. Multiple literacies are continually growing to require mastery in more than one, and librarians are poised to be on the front lines in delivering instruction and resources to help in this understanding.

Source: ASIDE, 2013

Librarians often know a school's curriculum better than the teachers themselves, because they reach all levels of learners. They have the capacity to enrich daily lessons and educational units.

Because the majority of student inputs these days are visual, interactive tools can help librarians and technology specialists enhance the range of curricular offerings.

Source: ASIDE, 2013

On Thursday, we had the opportunity to spend a terrific day with librarians from the Delaware-Chenango-Madison-Otsego (DCMO) districts in Norwich, New York. Together, we explored ways that technology can help teachers and librarians collaborate by using web tools and iPad apps. We greatly enjoyed meeting the skilled and dedicated professionals from the Board Of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) affiliated schools. We especially want to thank School Library System Coordinator Susan LeBlanc for inviting us to lead the all-day workshop.

Source: ASIDE, 2013

The exchange of ideas throughout the day helped generate project ideas and Internet applications to reinforce the underlying goal of educational design. This goal states that by shaping information in well-conceived, visual ways, students can become motivated, self-directed learners who create their own content and publish their own work. Technology offers valuable outlets for students, because it promotes choice and imagination.

Technology also provides a window for librarians, because it can boost all forms of literacy. We greatly look forward to staying in touch with our new colleagues from the DCMO schools. And if you happen to be in the area, we recommend the warm fire and witty servers at Gus' Steakhouse on Route 12.

Source: ASIDE, 2013

D-LIT: Publishing With Kids Using Bookemon

Source: If You Give a Tiger a Taco

In the library curriculum every year, the students create original works of fiction in the first and second grades. They write and illustrate stories based on author studies or individual books. While the objectives for publishing the different projects remain the same, how we publish the books has changed. Using Web 2.0 technology such as Bookemon makes creating a digital book a snap, easy to share and digitally permanent. The kids love seeing their work published, especially because it can be read over and over again.

One of our favorite publishing projects is the first grade cooperative book. This past year, they based their stories on the If You Give a… series by Laura Numeroff. They analyzed the books for cause-and-effect situations, and they developed a keen sense of the pattern created by the author to bring each story full circle back to where it began. The two books in this post, If You Give a Tiger a Taco and If You Give a Dalmatian a Donut, mimic that pattern and were published using Bookemon.

Source: If You Give a Dalmatian a Donut

The original books the students wrote and illustrated were published traditionally on paper, using standard word processing software for the text and a scanner for the images. The document was printed, bound and cataloged as part of the permanent collection of the school library. This same document was uploaded directly to the Bookemon website to make the digital books in this post. It’s that simple. In fact, it takes more time to fill out the publishing information and to create a cover design than it actually does to publish the final copy on the web.

Bookemon offers many other features. You can publish directly from scratch with complete functionality for adding images, using templates, and selecting pictures from its clipart files. It also offers the opportunity to upload your own photos, use different page layouts, or select from different themes.

Source: Islamic Calligraphy

Teachers can use it to create their own publications, too. The sample below, called Where Do People Live? Urban, Suburban and Rural Communities, was produced using Bookemon. This book was written and designed to better meet the curriculum needs for the second grade study of communities. The Islamic Calligraphy book celebrates the workshop our students participated in as part of their study of the art of calligraphy during the Islamic Empire in the Middle Ages. This publication features all of the students' names in Arabic.




Best of all, with Bookemon educators can create secure and private environments, called edCenters, for their students to create and share books. This type of account allows teachers to control access only to members, to receive discounts on purchased books, and to add student accounts that provide privacy and oversight of their work.

Check out our other D-LIT posts on design, literacy, information and technology.

D-LIT: Digital Storytelling Using VoiceThread

In a previous post, we addressed D-LIT (design, literacy, information and technology) in creating stories using Storybird. Another Web 2.0 resource for digital storytelling is VoiceThread. This application can easily be used with young children to publish multimedia stories that they create by combining voice, illustration and text. VoiceThread, like Storybird, brings design, literacy, information and technology (D-LIT) all together, and because it is web-based, they have easy access to hear and read their published books again.

Our first-grade classes put together a work of fiction as a collaborative book. The example you see here, called How Do Dinosaurs Go To the Library, was part of an author study of the How Do Dinosaurs… series by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. The students analyzed how the author divided what happens in each of the books between Dinosaur do's and dont's and observed how the illustrator incorporated the dinosaurs into the world of humans. They listened to the patterns and rhymes in the story to try to mimic what the author did in theirs. Each student added a sentence in a brainstorming activity to take them from the beginning to the end. After this, the students designed illustrations to go with their words in the book.

The final piece was to have them record the words to their pages using VoiceThread. The excitement in publishing a book, hearing their own voices read aloud, and being able to play it over and over allowed them to share their experience with family and friends. They still go back to the website to listen, and the stories have become teaching tools about using the library for others.

The other project that we did with our second graders was an author study of the Pigeon book series by Mo Willems. For this project, the students worked out a storyboard based on the conventions the author used in this popular and humorous series. They especially liked designing the page where the pigeon "loses it" because it does not get what it wants.

The students had full choice over the subject matter for their original stories and happily engaged themselves in learning how to draw pigeons using the author’s website called “Pigeon Presents.” We often put up sample drawings on the interactive white board to convey the pigeon's emotions and body language that they could browse on  their own for ideas.

The original hardbound copies were put on display in the library, and a sampling of their works was recorded using VoiceThread. They were truly empowered by the experience and quite honestly kept drawing pigeons the whole year. For a look at these original creations, please visit the Digital Storytelling page.

D-LIT: Designing Stories

Last fall, Alfie Kohn gave a workshop called The (Progressive) Schools Our Children Deserve. Although he is a controversial and outspoken critic of education, Kohn’s mantra is getting kids “juiced” about learning. His criticisms of the education system have been hotly argued, but getting kids excited about what they are doing requires no debate. Call it engagement, motivation, drive, or whatever -- if kids become independent and self-motivated about what they are learning, we win as teachers.

This past year in the library, our second graders designed their own stories. It was a lesson that began with a reading of How Much Wood Could a Woodchuck Chuck? by Daniel Alderman. This colorful, whimsical book of tongue-twisters, illustrated by twelve different children’s illustrators, and its accompanying CD had the kids howling and singing all the way back to their classrooms. The best part about it was that they began to make up their own tongue-twisters at lunch, on the bus line, and at home.

Putting all that juiced up energy to work, they used a wonderful Web 2.0 tool called Storybird to design and publish their own stories. It was design, literacy, information and thinking all in one, or as we call it, D-LIT. We talked a lot about language, parts of speech, use of rhyme, and in particular how homophones and homonyms changed the meaning of their sentences. They used a basic plan to brainstorm their ideas, and if someone had trouble, others in the class were eager to help. The hardest part for most was not thinking of two words or a compound word, but whether the combination made sense in reverse. This post is peppered with some pages from their books.

So how does all this fit in with getting “juiced” about learning? Well, it was not what they did in class, but what they did when they left. These students began authoring and publishing their own stories using Storybird, and not just one book, or for one time. They took pride in the sense of ownership over their ideas and in designing books for themselves and others. They quickly learned that they could search their classmates’ stories within Storybird and comment on them. Indeed, they were empowered with the spark of a life-long learner. Design, literacy, information, and thinking (D-LIT) all merged into one. For a complete look at their stories, please visit the 2nd Grade Digital Storytelling Projects.