Creating Art in History - A Nontraditional Use of Google SketchUp

What’s going on behind the walls of history? The Pre - AP U.S. History class of juniors just finished their new creative art project. John Klingseisen, STEM Facilitator, created the project around a field trip to the Fort Worth Amon Carter Art Museum where students took a step inside the past by learning the ideas behind American art during the Gilded Age. The project itself consisted of a physical art piece, an informative essay including topics such as industrialization, urbanization and Progressivism, even a digital representation of the art piece.

One art piece per group was required. The essay portion was necessary for grading. This assignment was a reflection of what a student learned from personal research as well as how to follow a rubric’s criteria. The required amount of APA cited sources left in the students in charge of what they learned. On the rubric it was mandatory that every student in their essay use outside sources such as books or databases and not the more common sites like Wikipedia or Bing. The digital representation was accomplished through Google Sketchup where different textures and feature were applicable.

Nathan Patske Pre - AP U.S. History student said “Our project was the best,” piece including an electrical switch for lights. Although enjoying the project the student felt there was something missing. Nathan added “There should be checkpoints” for the progression of the art pieces to keep one single person from working on the whole art aspect.

A question for the History Facilitator was, “Next year will the project will be implemented?” The answer, yes. Perfect or not, the project broke out of the regular Project Based Learning format unlike regular history projects with informational question and monotonous reading instituting hands on art the teams were able to share and finally present to a panel of colleagues.  


STEM Academy Newsletter

By: Martin Bowser, STEM Academy Student

Reality and Redefining Persuasive Writing

From a mere four reality TV shows in 2000 to a staggering 340 in 2010, this phenomenon has captured audiences and changed the face of television. So, how could a topic you are passionate about be transformed into a reality show? This is the question that Ms. Appel, from Medlin Middle Sschool, posed to her 8th grade language arts students. Students were tasked with collaborating to design a persuasive multimedia pitch for a reality tv show. 

Students worked in teams to develop a reality show name, a concept, a catch phrase, and conducted  research to identify the network that would be the best for for their show. After developing the foundation for their show, the groups created a storyboard and had the opportunity to chose the media or presentation tool they would utilize to present their persuasive pitch. The last piece of the puzzle was presenting their multi-media presentation to an audience and receiving feedback.

Josey, Brydon, and Shayleigh developed a showed called Fiction Wars. "Our mission is to get multimedia representation for readers, and their books, everywhere. Our show puts readers into mind bending situations based on their favorite book, testing their knowledge and resilience under pressure.  We believe that CBS is the best fit for our show because not only is it a major network, it has a strong reputation in the gameshow world."

"I felt like this was a great idea for a project. It allowed me to feel free to choose a topic I was passionate about. I was fun to get to come up with an idea and work through the process. Getting to choose our own tool allowed us to find what works best and make it our own. Using technology enable us to make our project more professional than we could have on paper. We were able to combine audio, visual and imagery to create a fun presentation for our audience." Shayleigh added that they were confident their persuasive technique was effective based on the clapping their group received at the end of their presentation. She found that this was a fun way to learn about persuasion while incorporating it with an idea they were passionate about.

Click here to view the rubric for this project.

It's a Trip, It's a Guide, It's a Wall....It's Cabeza De Vaca

4th grade students at Nance Elementary explored Cabeza De Vaca in Social Studies. Mrs. Cochran and Mrs. Clemons wanted to give their class the opportunity to expand on the DBQ's that were written in class.  Pairs of students had the choice of creating a digital timeline of Cabeza's adventure, a guide of his journey, or a wall of his accomplishments.  The class truly enjoyed expanding on their research and getting to choose how to showcase their learning for others.

Emma and Paige teamed up to use Padlet.  "We included a lot on our wall, because we had already researched information about Cabeza De Vaca." Paige added, "I was reminded that we should enjoy the life that we have now.  It was rough for Cabeza de Vaca.  I learned that they had to travel for years on foot when we can just get in our cars to go places, or use our phones to communicate."
  
Jack created an interactive map using Tripline.  "I learned that Cabeza De Vaca crashed into Tampa Bay, FL and my map let others see the exact line of where he went.  I choose pictures from Google images for each spot on my map and explained what Cabeza De Vaca did while he was there." 

According to John and Layton, who created a Snapguide,"We learned that Cabeza De Vaca was a surgeon. We were able to show in our guide how he survived." John decided to embed a video to conclude his Snapguide and said that this feature helped him include all of details that he learned in one slide.

Layton sums it up best when he says, "This project was a lot of fun and I would recommend all of these sites.  I did a Snapguide, but after seeing my friends projects, I want to create a map too.  It is important for us to learn with technology because when we get to Middle School and High School we will be using it a lot."    

While reflecting on the project, Mrs. Cochran comments, "It was hard to convince myself to let the students use programs that I did not fully understand myself, but I'm glad that I did.  We all worked together and they created some really great visuals that we can share with others."  

Jack and Brock's Tripline Map

Tara and John's SnapGuide

Layton and Christian's SnapGuide

Paige and Emma's Padlet (Embedded Below)

Literacy Love via Book Trailer Choice

Roanoke 5th grade is fully involved in book clubs and readers workshop.  Students' journals are teaming with reading responses and reading logs are filling up fast.

So, how do you continue this enthusiasm and encourage the motivation to read more? Let your students create their own book trailers! Choice was all over this project, from the selection of the book to showcase in the trailer to the digital tool to create the trailer, every part was student driven.

The Roanoke Language Arts Teachers provided examples, discussed with the students that elements that made a successful trailer, modeled how to plan out the process to create a trailer and provided a rubric that identified the content needed to show mastery of literacy skills.

Here are two exemplars from the the 5th grade students at Roanoke Elementary.

The Lion Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis- Book Trailer by Michael using Smore

Nothing's Fair in the Fifth Grade by Barthe DeClements- Book Trailer by Amanda using Animoto

These exemplars along with the other 5th grade students' Book Trailers, using a variety of tools beyond what was mentioned here, can be seen on the Standard Based Bulletin Boards at Roanoke Elementary until November 21st, 2014.  All are welcome to come by and see how choice promotes the love of literacy via Book Trailers.