Until recently, when someone mentioned stickers I thought of the pages of foil stickers that parents buy at the dollar store for their kiddos to ravage, or the booklets of "Good Job!" stickers that teachers use to mark students' quizzes , or the oh-so-exciting 3D and/or smelly and/or fuzzy stickers that I buy for no reason at all and then keep under my bed for a year! Really though, stickers are cute and maybe fun, but they're not exactly innovative or high tech or even super cool anymore, right? At my internship with the Innisfil Library and IdeaLAB I discovered that yes, stickers are definitely still cool! Especially when you can make your own! So, without further ado, I would like to introduce: This vinyl cutter is the fancy machine that I used at my internship site to 'print' my very own stickers. This is step two out of three however, so let me backtrack a bit here. First, I designed my sticker using Inkscape. Inkscape is a free (!) vector graphics editor which, in my experience, simply means a program on which you can draw and/or design images etc. that use vectors instead of pixels. For sticker-making purposes this is necessary, because (as you can see in the representative image below) pixelated images have rough edges that poor Roland would have a very hard time cutting out accurately, whereas vector images have smooth edges that are much easier to cut along! When you initially begin working with this program I think it is a bit frightening, but with practice it becomes pretty easy! *As a side-note, this program can be used in so many other ways, so you should check it out even if you're not sticker-making! The second step was to send my design to Roland. Thanks to the vast intelligence of Roland and the computer that I Inkscaped on, all I had to do was select print, then get (vinyl) size from machine, then go. After that Roland just started doing his duty and cutting my sticker while I looked on in awe. Now, as cool as all the digital and technical parts of this process were, my favourite was the final step which was all on me to do by hand (gasp, I know). Once the sticker was cut, I had to pick it. In other words, I pulled off the bits that I did not want in my sticker, and purposely left behind the parts that I did want. I kept both parts, for the express purpose of showing others how it works! So the image on the right is my final sticker, and the image on the left is what I peeled off, and what would normally be discarded (though technically, you can do it the other way around if you want, and pull out the smaller bits to purposefully keep the frame, its up to you because its your sticker!). I think that this would be an AMAZING activity to do in an elementary classroom! For Global Maker's Day my partner-in-internship-crime Rachel and I brought in stickers for the whole class to pick, and it went over really well! This is probably the easiest way to bring vinyl stickers into the classroom. I think it would be even cooler however, to have kids do the whole process, because it gives students the opportunity to be creative; especially older kids who, according to test scores, are getting less and less creative (Miranda, 2012). Not everyone has a Roland Vinyl Cutter - nor a Cricut, though these could also work! - but thanks to places like the Innisfil Library, its still an actual possibility! A teacher can book space and time in the HackLAB at the library to do the entire process there, using their computers and programs. Another option however, which is the route that I am most likely to take in the future, is to prepare and design in the classroom, then print at the library, and bring the cut stickers back to the classroom for students to pick. As I mentioned above, Inkscape is a free program, and is not too difficult to learn (at least as much as is necessary for sticker making), so it could be added to and used on classroom devices easily. Students then have the opportunity to design their stickers, taking as much time as they need. The building of anticipation too would be an added bonus in this situation, as the students await the arrival of their very own stickers! Once they do, they can pick them together in their classroom! This whole process is a lovely mix of technology and art that will engage and benefit any child (or adult, for that matter) as they stretch their creativity! (Van't Hul, 2016) Some advice from a (somewhat) experienced sticker maker:
Happy sticker making! References:
Miranda, C. (January 2012). Why we need to let kids be creative. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/03/living/let-kids-be-creative-p/index.html. Van't Hul, J. (January 2016). The Benefits of Art for Kids. Retrieved from https://artfulparent.com/2016/01/the-benefits-of-art-for-kids.html.
2 Comments
I think that in today's technologically-centered world, the act of actually penning (or penciling!) a story on paper has become a foreign concept for many young students. The challenge is to get them excited about story writing and telling, and digital storytelling meets that challenge! In my media class we have discussed and played with several different forms of digital storytelling. We looked at videos, such as this one about a boy who created a cardboard arcade, and this one with no images, just words. We also dipped our toes into Five Card Flickr after talking about how well images alone can tell or inspire a story. There are countless other ways to create digital stories as well (Cool Tools for School, 2017). While these mediums are amazing, they can be a bit complicated if a class or teacher is new to the idea of digital storytelling. By far the easiest method to implement in an elementary classroom, in my opinion, simply uses Google Slides, which is readily available to almost anyone.
Each member of my class created a slide simultaneously, and together our slides created our very own Important Book! In an elementary school classroom this would be an ideal way to incorporate both individual and collaborative work. Depending on the age there are practicalities which should be considered though. As a teacher, you might want to preemptively create a slide for each student, and attach their names to them. This would avoid the confusion that my class had as we all tried to create our own slides in the deck at the same time. I would also suggest creating one example slide as a class, to clearly show what students are expected to do and how they can do it.
Some examples of collaborative digital story topics are: an Important Book, in which each student explores the importance of a specific topic; a book of slides about each students' favourite place in the city; a book that lays out the purpose of each part of a plant; a book that showcases every students' Thanksgiving weekend. The possibilities are truly endless and any grade level can do it! Digital storytelling is a powerful tool (Dillon, 2014) because it interests students who enjoy using technology, and it is something that they can share and be proud of. It is not simply an assignment to hand in to the teacher. Instead the students get to work together and create something amazing, that they can share with anyone - which is particularly easy using the shareable link feature or even creating a QR code (E Flanagan, 2015)! An interesting extension of this activity might involve connecting with another classroom in the world, creating books on similar topics, and sharing the books with each other to see the similarities and differences! References: Cool Tools for School. (2017). Thing 4: Digital Storytelling. Retrieved from https://cooltoolsforschool.wordpress.com/digital-storytelling/. Dillon, B. (December 2014). The Power of Digital Story. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/the-power-of-digital-story-bob-dillon. E Flanagan. (2015). Making Digital Books Google Slides. Retrieved from http://www.erintegration.com/2015/07/09/create-share-digital-books-with-google-slides-for-free/. In one of our first classes of my Media and Digital Literacy class, the question "what is media literacy?" was posed. Myself and a partner created a large web diagram on chart paper, with media literacy at the center and various definitions, terms, and ideas associated with the concept branching off. It was a great way to introduce a new idea, and to get us talking! Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the original web, but we did create a digital word cloud based on what we as individuals believed to be the most important aspects of media literacy. Word clouds are an excellent tool for bringing together ideas to create a fun, visual representation of our thoughts - try it out using the link below!
|
AuthorCassy. Teacher in training, student, reading enthusiast, and dog mom. Archives
January 2018
Categories |