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Monday, June 11, 2012

S'More Tech Summer Camp, Day 6

Hi campers!

I hope you're finding time to explore the tools we're discovering at camp this summer. We didn't really get to create anything yesterday, so let's get crafty today!

It's time now for another Web 2.0 tool that doesn't require an account...Big Huge Labs! This is the place to find a collection of fun tools for digital photos!



You could make a trading card, as a short and simple research project for younger students. I can see first graders (and some kinders) making animal trading cards as a product of their research.

Got more time? Make a magazine cover for a biography project. Or create a movie poster for a book. Make ID badges for your library helpers. There are so many cool options to choose from!

You will need to find digital images ahead of time and save them to a folder students can access. And you will need to help your students work their way through the options, like the hex codes for colors, and all of the places for text on the magazine covers.

There are ads all over the place on this free site. You can set up an educator account ahead of time if you want to remove those ads and create logins for your students, allowing you to see their work.

I've been reading Destiny of the Republic today, and thinking about James Garfield. Really an amazing story. I created this poster, with the words Frederick Douglass used to describe Garfield.


Or, I could be more lighthearted with our friend, Scaredy Squirrel.


You can see that Big Huge Labs will let your students combine text and photos in ways that they are familiar with from popular media, like magazines and billboards. I like that there are several short and sweet options here. One of the challenges I have is convincing teachers that "research" is part of every day life, rather than "drop everything else and write (then grade) a huge research paper."

Here are some more ways I can think of to use Big Huge Labs with library learning:

-Personification: with a photo of something that isn't a person, use Captioner to make comic book captions
-Badge maker as part of a career study
-Billboard for a persuasive message or a geographical destination
-Badge maker to create an ID for a famous person, with important facts
-Vocabulary posters

Big Huge Labs is another site that's been around for a few years. I'd love to hear ways that you've used it (or plan to use it) in YOUR library! What will you create for your S'More Tech summer camp scrapbook?





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