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  • Deconstruction Media
  • Media Deconstruction Worksheets
  • The National Art Gallery offers a series of lessons surrounding Who Am I?: Self-Portraits in Art & Writing.
  • Zoom.it creates a display of your images in a format that allows you to zoom in, zoom out, and scroll around a large image.
  • Zoom in on an object until you are unable to tell what it is.  Have students guess the mystery object as a lesson introduction or a creative writing prompt.
  • Media Analysis Tools (Library of Congress)
  • Deconstructing Media Messages
  • CoCo's AdverSmarts: An Interactive Unit on Food Marketing an interactive unit for students ages 5-8 to help them recognize the marketing techniques used on children's commercial Web sites

  • Canva for Education site features eighteen lesson plans written by Vicki Davis, Steven Anderson, Terri Eichholz, and Paul Hamilton. The lesson plans include things like Paul's making historical infographics in which students summarize and visually represent the connections between historical events and their causes. For the elementary school crowd Terri has a lesson called Initial Selfies in which students learn to isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds. One of Steven's lesson plans calls for students to build graphics about percentages. And to take advantage of students' familiarity with Facebook, Vicki has built a lesson plan in which students build historical figure fan pages.
  • Literacyhead free parts: go to Features drop-down link. Example: from the art of teaching reading. A lesson using visual art to support deep comprehension during a read-aloud with a featured picture book. The lesson includes discussion prompts around four pieces of visual art to discuss before reading, eight images from the book to support discussion during reading, and four more pieces of visual art to discuss after reading. Includes pictures related to book with questions, pictures from the book with questions. Pictures after reading the book with quest EASY to replicate with books not included at the site
  • My Pop Studio - a site for teens that involves remixing images, text, music and video from magazines, TV shows, and pop music to foster critical analysis of how women are portrayed in the media.
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art Education Department. Online lessons, arrange visits, and posters (Each full-color, laminated, 18 x 24-inch poster presents a large image of the artwork on the front and information, looking questions, maps, and related art projects on the back. The resource book contains worksheets, interdisciplinary activities, vocabulary, and annotated book lists.)
  • A Visual Literacy Unit for Students in Years 7 and 8
  • Eye on Idioms gr 3-6
  • Photobloging ; Use this site or the concept of the site to use images as blogging topics
  • Create Quizes of videos -ProProfs.com tutorials
  • Model Lesson for interpreting photographs: simple, well organized and interdisciplinary
  • Numerous Lessons for all ages
  • Ad Generator: Generate invented slogans to remix with photos..handout on media literacy: persuasion techniques
  • Propaganda Techniques in Literature and Online Political Ads
    Students explore the similarities of the propaganda techniques used in the literary text and in the online political ads to explain the commentary the text is making about contemporary society.
  • Skitch Draw on and annotate pictures
  • Says it image makers allow you to create your own funny photos and graphics - simply type in some text and choose from a few simple options. You can create your own church sign, make an official seal, have your own fire or police badge, and more. Once you've picked your options and created your image, you can use it for whatever you like - save it on your computer, upload it to ImageShack image hosting for use in blog or forum posting, or have it applied to a variety of high-quality merchandise from Zazzle.com, including stickers, mugs, keychains, and magnets.
  • Nachofoto search for photos at news sites
  • Using Pictures in Lessons Ideas
  • Digital Poetry Create visual representations for poems, songs, book chapters, or characters.    Ex. Biopoem
  • Every Picture Has A Story
  • Image Detective is an online media literacy activity. It’s a nice web exercise, but its process can be adapted any photo. First, the teacher or student poses a question about the photo. Next, the student identifies clues in the photo that help them answer the question. Then, the student investigates background information on the picture and/or topic it represents. Finally, the student makes his/her conclusion. The final project looks like this:My Question Is:- Clues I’ve Identified: - I am fairly confident that:- My best reasons for thinking this are: - A question this raised for me is:

  • MessageHop - Site for uploading pictures, writing about them and creating animations.
  • Photobloging ; Use this site or the concept of the site to use images as blogging topics
  • K-5 Media Literacy lessons: Six units of downloadable lessons
  • Middle School Media Literacy Lessons: Six units of downloadable lessons
  • High School Media Literacy Lessons: Six units of downloadable lessons
  • More High School Media Literacy Lessons: http://medb.byu.edu/lesson
  • Comics in the Classroom
  • Haiku and photography: A natural connection
    This lesson will allow students to combine photographing nature with creating a Haiku poem to express what they see in the photograph.
  • Analyzing photographs inspires visual literacy and critical thinking in students
  • Visual Literacy Toolbox: Learning to Read Images
  • Learning to look at art
    Strategies for helping students develop visual literacy in looking at paintings and other forms of visual art.
  • From "Picturing America": Norman Rockwell, Freedom of Speech-Know It When You See It 

    This student interactive, from an EDSITEment lesson plan, allows students to explore Norman Rockwell's painting, "Freedom of Speech".
  • A picture is worth a thousand words
  • A picture is worth a thousand thoughts: inquiry with Bloom’s taxonomy is the title of a very useful resource from Learn NC. It shows a photo, along with the original Bloom’s Taxonomy pyramid. By clicking on each thinking level, you are shown questions about the photo reflecting the level. It’s a very simple and visual way to teach Bloom’s Taxonomy, and can easily be replicated as a student assignment in any classroom.
    An example of how a single image can provoke discussions at all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.
  • WRITE A PICTURE STORY: Five Card Flickr Story lets you pick five photos from a group of pre-selected images from Flickr and then write a story about them. It saves your selection and story, and provides you with a link to it. No registration is required.
  • The power of a portrait
    The students will use the portrait Mending Socks by Archibald Motley to explore how objects can be used to tell about a person's attributes and life.
  • WRITE A STORY WITH PAINTINGS: The Art of Storytelling is a site from the Delaware Art Museum that allows you pick a painting, write a short story about it, record it with your computer microphone, and email the url address for posting on a student website or blog. It’s extraordinarily simple, and extraordinarily accessible to any level of English Language Learner. No registration is required.
  • Reading picture books
    Two strategies for helping children understand a story through illustrations.Format: article
  • Reading picture books: resources for teachers
    Illustrations, picture book finding aids, and great picture book websites.
  • Visual Literacy and the Net Lessons and sites for paintings and photographs
  • "Government and the media commonly manipulate video and photographs using modern computer technology, raising ethical questions concerning truth and deception. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but doctoring a photo sometimes says a lot more. During the last 150 years, photographs repeatedly have been manipulated for propaganda, fraud, humor, profit and just to rewrite history" article -> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_38_16/ai_66241129
  • Multiple Choice Quiz: Images used as a clue to answering questions and tap into prior knowledge.
  • his lesson is for students to practice scanning images visually for details that can be seen. This lesson will focus on locating visual details and examining them within the overall context of an image.
  • Reading picture books: resources for teachers
  • Visual Literacy and the Net Lessons and sites for paintings and photographs
  • "Government and the media commonly manipulate video and photographs using modern computer technology, raising ethical questions concerning truth and deception. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but doctoring a photo sometimes says a lot more. During the last 150 years, photographs repeatedly have been manipulated for propaganda, fraud, humor, profit and just to rewrite history" article -> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_38_16/ai_66241129
  • Multiple Choice Quiz: Images used as a clue to answering questions and tap into prior knowledge.
  • PicLits
    PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches images with selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture. Consider using with an interactive whiteboard.
  • Scanning for Visual Details - The purpose of this lesson is for students to practice scanning images visually for details that can be seen. This lesson will focus on locating visual details and examining them within the overall context of an image.
  • Better Learning and Expressing of Learning through Visual Literacy
  • Bubblr: quickly find pictures on flikr and add captions extra tutorial
  • Picture This: visual learning activities
  • Images as Persuasion - The purpose of this lesson is to teach students that images can function as a means of persuasion. This lesson will focus on how images can be used to convey messages that may influence an audience. Students will also learn that an image's message or meaning may depend on from what perspective it is coming and on how it is being framed, be it using captions, cropping the image to accentuate a certain part, etc.
  • Art of Persuasion (PBS: How Art Made The World) handout on media literacy: persuasion techniques
  • Images as Persuasion (other plans)
  • Change My Mind - Multimedia resources with teacher guide and videos for 8-10 grades that teaches the persuasive writing process
  • Speechable - How many words are your pictures worth? This site allows you to upload a picture and then a unique URL is created where students can add their own comments. A great way to encourage writing!

  • Visual LIteracy Toolbox: HIgh School Activities
  • Tseng Kwong Chi Collection Educator's Guide complements study in many subject areas, including social studies, language arts, art, photography, American studies, Asian American studies, architecture, geography, and history. Suggested issues include the definition of national identity and stereotyping of "outsiders," how art forms are influenced by popular culture, and the "truthfulness" of a portrait photograph.
  • Resources for teaching with photographs
    Websites, activities, books, and image collections for classroom use.
  • Teaching with disturbing images
    Photographs are especially powerful tools for explaining current and historical events — not least horrible or brutal events, such as war, genocide, famine, terrorism, slavery, and lynching. In fact, photographs are often used
  • Build "visual reading" into your classroom. Design an activity that uses the Picture of the Day from one of the following websites.
  • Visual Ranking Tool and Seeing Reasoning Tool: from Intel free
  • MarQueed is a tool for organizing collections of images, sharing those collections, and discussing the images in those collections. The basic idea of MarQueed is to provide tools for highlighting elements of pictures and drawings for others to see. You can upload an image to MarQueed then draw on it or attach a text box to it. For example, if I had an image of a cell I could upload it to MarQueed then label parts of it for my students to see.
  • My Pop Studio in the Classroom: Learn how teachers used the interactive play experience, My Pop Studio, to promote media literacy in Grades 7 - 8
  • How Media Literacy Supports Cultural Understanding: video describes a ML integration program in Grades 3 - 4 to promote cultural understanding between US and Middle East
  • Assignment Media Literacy: comprehensive ML curriculum with print PDF lessons and video support materials) for K-12, developed by Renee Hobbs and the Maryland Department of Education with the Discovery Channel
    Beyond Beats and Rhymes
    : See what a staff development program looks like to help high school communication arts teachers explore how to bring critical reflection on the representation of gender and identity in hip-hop music videos, based on the Bryon Hurt documentary of the same title.
  • In the recent Florida Times-Union article "Teacher Helps Mandarin's Gottlieb School Earn Best Buy Grant," awardee Andrea Hernandez shares her view that "in a digitized world of graphics and instant video and photos, you just have to be visually literate." This week's Ideas provide some resources for using film to support the visual literacy activities that the article calls for.
  • The Language Arts article "Let's Go to the Movies: Rethinking the Role of Film in the Elementary Classroom" (E) argues that elementary language arts teachers should expand their definition of "text" to include film, a valuable instructional resource. The article notes that today's elementary students come to class with a great deal of knowledge about films -- prior experiences which teachers can tap into -- and discusses the application of reader-response theories to film.
  • Based on the above Language Arts article, the ReadWriteThink.org lesson Get the Reel Scoop: Comparing Books to Movies (Elem) asks students to compare and contrast books with their movie counterparts and then work in groups to design a readers theater response to the film version.
  • Ask students to play the role of moviemakers with techniques from the Voices from the Middle article "Meeting Readers: Using Visual Literacy Narratives in the Classroom" (M). The article describes a literacy narrative project -- a concise digital video in which students meld still images, motion, print text, and soundtrack in communicating ideas/insights/discoveries about who they are as readers and writers.
  • Students take on the role of film director in the ReadWriteThink.org lesson
    You Know the Movie Is Coming -- Now What? (M). After exploring cinematic terms, students read a literary work with a director's eyes, considering such issues as which scenes require a close-up of the main character and when the camera should zoom out to see the entire set.
  • The English Journal article "How Movies Work for Secondary School Students with Special Needs" (S) demonstrates how to use scenes from films to help special education students improve their visual and auditory skills, build confidence in their abilities to talk about and analyze the components of a narrative, and feel comfortable engaging in writing and class discussion.
  • In the ReadWriteThink.org lesson Decoding The Matrix: Exploring Dystopian Characteristics through Film (S), students view and analyze clips from The Matrix and other dystopian films to gain an understanding of the characteristics found in dystopian works, such as Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984.
  • Research has shown that contemporary popular films are a valuable resource in the ESL classroom, but what about older films? The Teaching English in the Two-Year College article "Unspoken Content: Silent Film in the ESL Classroom" (C) explores how overlooked silent films can facilitate the development of ESL students' critical thinking and writing skills.
  • Teacher educators can challenge students to explore how educators are represented in movies and television shows. Share the English Journal article "Teaching English in the World: All I Need to Know about Teaching I Learned from TV and Movies" (S-TE) with preservice teachers and ask them to film their own revised versions of the real life of teachers in the classroom. Encourage discussion of ways to counter flawed visions of the profession locally and at state and national levels.

Math 

  • Bend it Like Bianca Learn how to compare distances between objects, and explore motion and forces. In this video clip from Cyberchase, Bianca uses geometric and spatial reasoning and knowledge about forces to help her soccer team score goals. gr 3-5
  • Three Men and a Balloon Understand the basic principles of visual perspective and use visual perspective to estimate and calculate distance. gr 6-12 
  • Can You Fill It? Practice volume estimation skills by estimating the least number of pours from different sized containers of water that are necessary to exactly fill a large container without spilling over. gr 3-6
  • Estimation Exploration Practice estimating skills and observation by visually comparing a group of ten objects to an unknown number of the same object. Check your estimation by counting k-2
  • The Demise of the Great American Frontier: Westward Spread of American population from 1790 to 1900 Examine maps created by Frederick Jackson Turner and census data showing the end of the frontier in the early 19th century. Display visual data by developing a series of shaded maps using census data to show the moving frontier gr 6-12

  • Math In the  Media This site is designed to be used by middle school math teachers. The goal is to get students interested in math using "real world examples. (6-8)
  • 101 Questions on which he is sharing images and videos as prompts for developing math questions.

Art/Media

  • Visual Literacy Activities
  • NGAkids Art Zone is a free iPad app from the National Gallery of Art. The app is designed to help elementary school and middle school students explore art through eight interactive activities. After students open the app they can scroll through a gallery of paintings and drawings. Double-tapping on a drawing or painting will open an interactive activity in which students can modify the original work. Modification of a selected work takes place through sketching and or adding elements selected from a gallery of modifications. Students can save each work in the app or save it to the camera roll on an iPad.

  • Create Quizes of videos -ProProfs.com tutorials
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art Education Department. Online lessons, arrange visits, and posters (Each full-color, laminated, 18 x 24-inch poster presents a large image of the artwork on the front and information, looking questions, maps, and related art projects on the back. The resource book contains worksheets, interdisciplinary activities, vocabulary, and annotated book lists.)
  • Zoom.it creates a display of your images in a format that allows you to zoom in, zoom out, and scroll around a large image.
  • Model Lesson for interpreting photographs: simple, well organized and interdisciplinary
  • Numerous Lessons for all ages
  • Using Pictures in Lessons Ideas
  • Every Picture Has A Story
  • MessageHop - Site for uploading pictures, writing about them and creating animations.
  • Photobloging ; Use this site or the concept of the site to use images as blogging topics
  • Genius of Photography (BBC series)
  • Literacyhead free parts: go to Features drop-down link. Example: from the art of teaching reading. A lesson using visual art to support deep comprehension during a read-aloud with a featured picture book. The lesson includes discussion prompts around four pieces of visual art to discuss before reading, eight images from the book to support discussion during reading, and four more pieces of visual art to discuss after reading. Includes pictures related to book with questions, pictures from the book with questions. Pictures after reading the book with quest EASY to replicate with books not included at the site
  • Use the study of photography to explore with your students the power of images and their impact on history. In this lesson students learn about the history of American photography by selecting and  critiquing  photographs in an interactive and collaborative activity. The lesson also incorporates geographic literacy into the fine arts experience by challenging students to focus on the significance of the place, captured in time, that influenced events.
  • K-5 Media Literacy lessons: Six units of downloadable lessons
  • Middle School Media Literacy Lessons: Six units of downloadable lessons
  • High School Media Literacy Lessons: Six units of downloadable lessons
  • More High School Media Literacy Lessons: http://medb.byu.edu/lesson
  • K-5 Media Literacy lessons: Six units of downloadable lessons
  • Middle School Media Literacy Lessons: Six units of downloadable lessons
  • High School Media Literacy Lessons: Six units of downloadable lessons
  • More High School Media Literacy Lessons: http://medb.byu.edu/lesson
  • Learning to look at art
    Strategies for helping students develop visual literacy in looking at paintings and other forms of visual art.
  • From "Picturing America": Norman Rockwell, Freedom of Speech-Know It When You See It 

    This student interactive, from an EDSITEment lesson plan, allows students to explore Norman Rockwell's painting, "Freedom of Speech".
  • A picture is worth a thousand words
    An example of how a single image can provoke discussions at all levels of Bloom's Taxonomy.
  • Basic Strategies in Reading Photographs
  • Science and Math Art Connections

    Teacher Vision Art and Math
    - Great activities and lessons that allow Art to be integrated into the Math curriculum.
    NPR Where Science Meets Art
    - Some exceptional podcasts integrating Science and Art.
    Arts Edge
    - A fantastic resource from the Kennedy Center hosting numerous lessons that integrate Art in the curriculum
    New York Times Learning Network
    - Blog produced by NY times that has some great lessons including Art Integration
    National Gallery Kid Zone
    - Loads of interactive Art tools that can be used for math, science, and engineering occasions
    Exploratorium
    - Take a look at the entire site, but especially explore the Art related material
    Science and More To Music
    - What a wonderful collection of MP3 songs written and performed by Dr. Lodge McCammon. Have kids perform to music using Flip Cameras and digital still cameras
    Edsitement - I include this site from the National Endowment for the Humanities because of its vast collection of Art related resources aimed at the Social Studies and Language Arts areas. When doing an interdisciplinary unit with Math and Science one may find a good tie in from this excellent resource.

  • The power of a portrait
    The students will use the portrait Mending Socks by Archibald Motley to explore how objects can be used to tell about a person's attributes and life.
  • Visual Literacy and the Net Lessons and sites for paintings and photographs
  • "Government and the media commonly manipulate video and photographs using modern computer technology, raising ethical questions concerning truth and deception. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but doctoring a photo sometimes says a lot more. During the last 150 years, photographs repeatedly have been manipulated for propaganda, fraud, humor, profit and just to rewrite history" article -> http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_38_16/ai_66241129
  • Multiple Choice Quiz: Images used as a clue to answering questions and tap into prior knowledge.
  • My Pop Studio in the Classroom: Learn how teachers used the interactive play experience, My Pop Studio, to promote media literacy in Grades 7 - 8
  • PicLits
    PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches images with selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture. Consider using with an interactive whiteboard.
  • Scanning for Visual Details - The purpose of this lesson is for students to practice scanning images visually for details that can be seen. This lesson will focus on locating visual details and examining them within the overall context of an image.
  • Structural Comparisons The purpose of this lesson is to teach students to scan images visually to look for structural elements within the picture's composition, such as foreground and background, symmetry and asymmetry, motion and tone. The lesson, like "Scanning for Visual Details," focuses on looking more closely at an image's structure rather than its content.
  • Tseng Kwong Chi Collection Educator's Guide complements study in many subject areas, including social studies, language arts, art, photography, American studies, Asian American studies, architecture, geography, and history. Suggested issues include the definition of national identity and stereotyping of "outsiders," how art forms are influenced by popular culture, and the "truthfulness" of a portrait photograph.
  • Resources for teaching with photographs
    Websites, activities, books, and image collections for classroom use.
  • Teaching with disturbing images
    Photographs are especially powerful tools for explaining current and historical events — not least horrible or brutal events, such as war, genocide, famine, terrorism, slavery, and lynching. In fact, photographs are often used
  • Interactive Fine Arts
  • ArtGames
    Kids ages 4-12 can learn the building blocks of art and creativity through this interactive website from Albright-Knox. Kids can learn about portraits, still-lifes, landscapes, color, and materials. They can also create their own works in the interactive studio... (Learn more)
  • Go West, Young Artist
    In this interactive game you get to go on a journey back in time and head out West to learn about painting landscapes. You choose your own art supplies and pick where you want to go. Along the way you will meet some famous artists and learn about the art of... (Learn more)Format: website/activity
  • WebExhibits
    Studying connections between art and science through interactive arts activities and informative pages. (Learn more)
  • WorldImages
    A collection of almost 50,000 images which have been arranged in portfolios by theme to be used for education and research. (Learn more)
  • Art Antics
    Locate photos of artwork that would be good for discussions about some aspect of art. Copy and paste the photos into a PowerPoint or Appleworks presentation. How will students use the presentation? Ideas: class discussions, journal writing, answer questions, add text, sequence slides, debate issues, or describe cause/effect, before/after, or alike/different.
    • Thinker: Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
    • AMIC - biggest organization, join as a trial member
    • Yahoo Gallery - search by artist
    • Do a search for an artist or work of art using Google.
  • Smarthistory - Art teachers and students will want to spend some time visiting Smart History. It includes more than two hundred artworks and one hundred and fifty videos and podcasts. All those resources are organized thematically, by style, by artist, and by time period.
  • How Media Literacy Supports Cultural Understanding: video describes a ML integration program in Grades 3 - 4 to promote cultural understanding between US and Middle East
  • Assignment Media Literacy: comprehensive ML curriculum with print PDF lessons and video support materials) for K-12, developed by Renee Hobbs and the Maryland Department of Education with the Discovery Channel
    Beyond Beats and Rhymes
    : See what a staff development program looks like to help high school communication arts teachers explore how to bring critical reflection on the representation of gender and identity in hip-hop music videos, based on the Bryon Hurt documentary of the same title.

 

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