Artifact # 6
Tell a Tall Tale - A web based activity that incorporates language arts and technology skills. The students are to view pictures that have been placed on the web-page and create a story to illustrate those pictures in any order.
Context
This activity was created in a media and technology class during my
block experience at Appalachian State University. Netscape Navigator
and Netscape Composer were used to create the web page used for the activity.
The pictures on the web-page were taken with a digital camera and then
downloaded onto the web-page. Intended for third grade students,
this lesson encourages the practice of computer skills while at the same
developing story telling for the language arts curriculum. The students
view the pictures on the web and then compose their story on a word processing
program.
Impact
This activity can be used by teachers
to encourage creative writing skills while improving computer competencies.
The web-page allows teachers to target various learning styles in a fun
and educational setting. Teachers can adapt this activity to almost
any grade level, making it a versatile lesson.
Alignment
This web-based activity incorporates both language arts and computer
and technology skills. The student
page of the lesson includes brief directions as well as the actual
pictures they are using to tell a story (Tech.
Comp. 11.1). Having these instructions directly on the web page
is helpful should the student need to refer back to them. Contained
on the teacher page are more in-depth directions as well as tips and links
to the standard course of study and computer skills that are met by this
lesson (Tech. Comp 10.1, 10.4).
Students will be evaluated on their computer skills by observing that the
pictures have been properly cut and pasted onto a word document with their
created story (Tech. Comp. 10.5).
In using a computer program to create a story with pictures, the students
are working on their computer skills which is something that cannot be
done with just pencil and paper (Tech Comp.
11.4). The web-page can be used with special needs children in that
they may relate the story of the pictures in a spoken story (Tech
comp 13.2). In addition to developing their computer skills,
students are building their language arts abilities by writing a creative
and original story that is illustrated by the pictures from the web-site
(Tech. Comp. 11.3).