Our school had recently begun creating podcasts as a means of exploring student multimedia development.  After trying Pixie, I decided it was time to allow the students the opportunity to create the graphics for upcoming podcast episodes. 

The 2nd grade students had recently completed a Language Arts unit dealing with fables. In addition, our Librarian had been teaching, reading and discussing fables with them too.  I was confident that they had the necessary understanding regarding fables and decided that they could more than handle the graphics end as I had previously worked with the students in various Pixie activities created both by myself and found inside the application’s library.

I gave each of the students a line or two from the fable, “The Ant and the Grasshopper”.  We discussed how the voice of each of the characters was important and how to write with quotation marks to show when a character is speaking. 

Each student was asked to create an illustration that would best show the characters, setting and mood of the frame from the fable.  The students used 2 class sessions to create individual Pixie files.  Students who completed their initial illustration were offered the opportunity to create additional ones, as there were more pages than we had students in class.  I estimate more than half of the students asked to do additional work! The investment they made into the drawings was evident by them asking to reread their lines over and over, while trying to get them just right!

Explore the Fable project here!

A similar project was done the following month by the 1st grade.  (See link 2 below) The focus of this podcast episode was the arrival of spring.  By keeping their word processing to brief excerpts, they were asked to create colorful illustrations that demonstrated their memories of the upcoming season.

Explore the 1st graders spring project!

Teaching technology has too long been viewed as the teaching of specific applications/programs as stand alone entities.  A great deal of computer resource teachers are left out of the greater curriculum of their school because of the complexity many classroom teachers feel when considering the inclusion of technology outside the regular classroom.   

Based on a constructivist model, I encourage students to explore aspects of a given technology while promoting their creativity when applying their learning in an open-ended student directed project that meets the standards and requirements I establish with them.  It is not enough for me to teach them an application or program. For me, true learning occurs when the students are able to utilize the tools while investing themselves into a project that reflects their interests and abilities. Creativity should never suffer from technology, it should be reflected in and by it!