HyperDocs to Create Simple Thanksgiving and Digital Citizenship Digital Stories

A Thanksgiving Story

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, why not have your students create a Thanksgiving inspired story? To get students started thinking about things to be thankful for, here's Kid President's 25 Reasons to be Thankful! Find more Thanksgiving related videos in my YouTube Thanksgiving playlist. 

Once students have been thinking about all the things that they are thankful for, here's a HyperDoc to help them create a thanksgiving digital story of their own. If you need it, I've created a screencast that explains my thinking behind the Hyperdoc. All you have to do is have them go to bit.ly/wevideotg. From there, students can explore, learn, help each other and create!

Digital Citizenship Contest Deadline Extended!

Since our Digital Citizenship Media Contest ended up being launched later than intended, we have extended the contest until Wednesday, December 14th.

This year we will be judging entries based on 3 categories: digital graphics, digital stories, and digital recordings. To get students writing scripts and creating videos in WeVideo, try having students take the Digital Citizenship Video Challenge by going to the HyperDoc at: bit.ly/wevideodc. In WeVideo, storyboard mode is the simplest way to drag in pictures and create a basic digital story.

Here's a video to help inform your students about the contest and get them started creating. If you need help teaching digital citizenship lessons, or would like support or advice with creating videos in the classroom, please don't hesitate to contact any of the EdTech ToSAs.

Using Prompts for Student Writing/EduWin for Carla Dunavan

Sometimes having students find inspiration to find a topic to write about can be difficult. I was always trying to find innovative ways to provide prompts. While there are lots of resources and ideas out there, here are two you might like to try.

Story Starters from Scholastic offers creative writing prompts. The online program asks for a first name, but not an e-mail address. The first name will automatically be entered if your student uses the online feature that allows them to type. Since Story Starter is a web-based program, you can assign it to your students to use on their Chromebooks. The prompts are leveled grades K-6th, and the program does change the prompt choices. There are four themes, Adventure, Sci Fi, Fantasy, and Scrambler. Each comes with a Teacher’s Guide and a Spin Lever you or your students can pull to come up with an interesting prompt.

If the student has accessed the web version, they’ll be able to choose a format, notebook, letter, newspaper, or post car, and can choose to add a drawing. Once the student is finished, the finished product can be saved to their Google Drive account. 

All they’ll need to do is choose “Print.” They’ll then need to make sure the Destination shows that it should be sent to their Google Drive. You’ll see that the Destination shows as Google Drive and that my username is shown. Once it is saved, your student will be able to find it saved as a PDF in their Google Drive. While it can be shared, since it is a PDF, it will not be able to be edited.

Another way I enjoyed giving student writing prompts was by using pictures I had cut out of magazines. I had a huge file of my favorites that my team and I used over the years as homework or in-class prompts that (sometimes, if we were lucky) tied to what we were doing in class. Enter Photo Prompts, a tumblr site with lots of photo prompts that can be filters by topic.

Of course, there are lots of other writing prompt websites. Write About is a great tool and offers a writing community. The site offers beautiful pictures and poses deep, thoughtful questions. Teachers can set up a class by signing up with their Google Apps for Education account. You’ll get a code that makes it easy for students to join your class. Geared more toward the older student, Write About offers students a chance to join writing communities based on their interests. That gives them an authentic audience to share with and receive feedback from. If you are interested, there is lot’s more information here.

EduWin/Carla Dunavan and WeVideo

WeVideo is a great way to use the Chromebooks to have your students create multi-media presentations. Want to get started with WeVideo in your classroom? Carla Dunavan has shared a short Google Presentation she created to use with her class. She shows how your students can install a Chrome extension that makes it really easy for your students to access WeVideo from Google Drive. Thank you Carla for sharing!