Next, review curated resources for teaching and learning in "CONNECT."
MiTechKids Creative Communicator task card for kindergarten. This task uses the Educreations App or web interface. Students will tell a story that explains them along with drawing, annotating images, and even provide their voice explaining their family, their favorite foods, favorite colors, and so much more.
MiTechKids Creative Communicator task card for first grade. Garfield Comic Strip is an online tool or app where students can create a one or three panel comic strip based on the Garfield Comic. Once students are done, they can download, save it or print it.
Garfield Comic Creator
MiTechKids Creative Communicator task card for fifth grade. Lucidchart is a visual platform for creating flowcharts and graphic organizers in real-time. Students under the guidance of teachers can use the free version.
21Things4Students: Thing 17 - Creative Communications. These Quests provide opportunities to learn about different software applications for creating digital objects or artifacts to communicate your ideas in new and creative ways. We've also included templates to help your students as they interact with these quests.
21Things4Students: Thing 11 - Powerful Presentations. Many of these quests utilize creative communication tools.
Make Learning Accessible
Support Best Practice
Being a creative communicator is one of the essential 21st Century Skills. As you begin to design for digital age teaching and learning that helps students practice this skill, consider trying one tool at a time. For example, have your students communicate their knowledge of the content by creating a podcast utilizing Buzzsprout's Step-by-Step Guide: How to Start a Podcast.
You might also consider giving your students voice and choice to create their own podcast. NPR's Student Podcast Challenge would be a great place to start. Utilizing choice boards will assist you in this endeavor. Dr. Catlin Tucker's Design Your Own Digital Choice Board will help.
Furthermore, evaluation is an important part of the learning process. By breaking down the communication process into smaller parts, the evaluation process becomes more manageable. Give students grades based on performance, process, and product. This resource can help you develop rubrics: Assessing 21st Century Skills.
Level Up
SAMR Framework for Tech Integration
- Substitution - Students create a slide deck explaining how Newton’s Third Law describes force and motion interactions.
- Augmentation - Students create a video demonstrating force and motion interactions and add it to the slide deck.
- Modification - Students use information to design a better seat belt in a Makerspace.
- Redefinition - Students work with an engineer to make a testable prototype of their seat belt and then make a Creative Communicator artifact to share the results.