TT#11: Show and Tell

One app that I have used in my teaching experience is Pixlr.  I had my students download this app but it can be accessed on the web.  This is a photo editing app.  I was teaching grade 11 ELA and we were looking at the impacts of the Media in the News.  To begin this unit, I wanted my students to see how easy it is to take a photo and change it to say what you want it to.  They were to choose simple objects from around the room and edit them to tell a new story.  It was interesting to see how the students took items and transformed them.  Students worked in partners for this assignment.  After they had completed the editing stage of the assignment, they had to prepare for their presentation.  I wanted to know what editing techniques they used, why they chose the item, and what story their new photo told.  Here are some examples my grade 11's submitted:

 

When I first mentioned this assignment to my class, they thought I was joking.  For this reason, when the students had to actually stop and think about what they would do took longer than I thought.I was very impressed with the risks that some of my students took.  The picture of the iPhone was the one I was most impressed with because this group had to find a way to take two pictures and overlap them to create their final product.  This took this group just over a class to play around with, but I was impressed with how they did not give up and try something simpler.  

Using this app, along with the Dove Evolution Commercial, allowed my students to see how simple it is to take a photo and change it to tell a new story.

~ Miss Laing