In Pictures - A Good Resource for Prompting Current Events Lessons

Over the weekend while browsing some news articles on the BBC News I was reminded of a good resource that I used for many years to prompt discussion and small research activities in my current events class. That resource is the BBC's Week in Pictures which is a section of their more general In Pictures collection. 

The Week in Pictures displays a small collection of photographs from around the world. The pictures capture a mix of  serious news stories and lighter cultural stories. The Week in Pictures collections are part of a much larger resource from the BBC simply called In Pictures. The In Pictures resource provides hundreds of images in a variety collections and slideshows about current events throughout the world. Some of the slide shows even include narration. All of the images include captions explaining what is happening in the picture and a little background knowledge about the event being photographed.

Applications for Education
For years I used the Week in Pictures pictures as conversation starters for current events discussions in my current events classes. For visual learners the images from the In Pictures collections are helpful for providing visual connections to and context for a story.

When using the Week in Pictures as the prompts for short research activities, it's helpful to remind students that they can refine their Google search results according to date of publication. This is a good tool to use whenever students are researching current events, trending topics, or any rapidly changing topic  In the following video I demonstrate how students can refine search results according to publication date.

It's important to note that most of the images in the Week in Pictures collections are copyrighted images. 

How I Created "Vintage" Travel Posters With Canva

In the past I've written about using the Library of Congress vintage travel posters collection in Google Earth. Last week I read a new Library of Congress blog post the vintage travel posters collection. Reading that post inspired me try my hand at creating a "vintage" travel poster of my own. Drawing is not a talent that I have developed in my life so I turned to my favorite graphic design tool, Canva, for help. 

In Canva there are lots of templates for making posters for all kinds of purposes. There is also a massive library of drawings and clipart that you can use in those templates. I chose not to use a template and instead chose one of the drawings that I found to be the background image for my poster. I then inserted a drawing of woman wearing a backpack and looking through binoculars. Finally, I used one of the text templates to add "Explore America" to my poster. You can see my finished product below. 

Applications for Education
Creating travel posters could be a nice way to have students summarize what they've learned about a national park, a city, or another travel destination. I'm not an art or graphic design teacher, but I can see a project like this one being used to help students develop skills in those areas as well.

Here's a video of the process that I outlined above. 

Five Google Docs Activities Besides Just Writing Essays

Over the last fourteen years I've used Google Docs and had students use Google Docs for lots of activities besides just writing essays. I've used Google Documents to facilitate analysis of primary sources, to create charts and diagrams, to facilitate group note-taking, to publish simple webpages, and to make collaborative task lists. All of those things are explained and demonstrated in the videos below. 

Guided Reading of Primary Sources

1. Find a digital copy, preferably in the Public Domain, of the primary source document that I want all of my students to read.

2. Copy and paste the primary source document into a Google Document.

3. Share the document with my students and allow them to comment on the document. I usually use the sharing setting of “anyone with the link” and then post the link on my blog. Alternatively, you could share by entering your students’ email addresses or by posting it in your Google Classroom.

4. I will highlight sections of the primary source document and insert a comment directly attached to the highlighted section. In my comments I will enter discussion prompts for students. They can then reply directly to my comments and each others' comments.

Here's a video of the process that is outlined above. 

Create Charts and Diagrams in Google Docs

In the Insert drop-down menu in Google Docs you will an option for inserting drawings. When you select the new drawing option you can create a chart or diagram from scratch. You can also use one of the premade charts that is found in the Insert menu. Watch this video to learn how to create charts and diagrams in Google Docs.

Publish Simple Websites
There are times when I want to make a document like a course syllabus or classroom expectations as easily accessible to as many people as possible. The easiest way to do that is to publish the document to the web instead of sharing it. Watch this short demo if you're not sure of the difference between sharing and publishing Google Docs.



Structure and Facilitate Group Notes
As I wrote the other day, I've tried a lot of methods for facilitating group note-taking in Google Docs. The method that works best for me and my students has been inserting a table and assigning students to squares within that table. Get the full explanation in this video.



Create Interactive Checklists in Google Docs
This is a relatively new capability within Google Documents. You can create a checklist and share it with collaborators to keep track of tasks for group projects. Watch this video to learn how to make interactive checklists in Google Documents.

A Tip for Structuring Group Notes in Google Docs

Fourteen years ago when I first started using Google Docs with students I got the idea to have my whole class take notes on the same document. It sounded good in my head on my drive to school. In practice it was a disaster as my students were quickly frustrated by accidentally writing over each other's notes. So then I tried having them each pick a color to write with to differentiate and avoid writing over each other's notes. That also didn't work well. Eventually, I decided to put a grid into the document and have students write within a square in the grid. That worked, kind of... It worked better when I broke the class into smaller groups and had them take notes in the grid on a shared Google Doc. 

Today, when I have students working in small groups and recording notes, I assign them to a Google Doc (Google Classroom makes that easy to do) that has a preformatted grid in it for them to write in. I've used this method in my computer tech classes when students are working on troubleshooting processes. I've used this method when I taught U.S. History and had students reading and evaluating historical documents. Both of those examples are explained and demonstrated in more detail in this new video that I recorded on Thursday. 

If you want to learn more about using Google Documents in your classroom I have a complete video overview of how to get started with Google Docs. And here are ten other Google Docs editing features you should know how to use.

Images, Inquiry, and Virtual Backgrounds - The Week in Review

Good morning from Maine where the sun is rising on what should be a great weekend to celebrate my oldest daughter's fifth birthday! I'm sure every parent says the same, but I can't believe how fast she's growing. It seems like just yesterday I was holding her in the hospital and now she's asking me to take her fishing, help her ride her bike, and spell words. 

This week I took a day off to take my daughters to Story Land before it closes for the year. I also snuck in a long bike ride this week. You might say I'm soaking up what's left of summer. I hope that those of you who are still on summer break are doing the same. And I hope that those who have started the new school year are off to a great start!

These were the week's most popular posts:
1. 12 Good Places to Find Historical Images to Spark Inquiry
2. How to Create a Random Question Generator
3. Five Good Tools for Making Your Own Educational Games and Practice Activities
4. Resources to Help Students Recognize Logical Fallacies and Cognitive Biases
5. Where I'd Like to Go - An Icebreaker With Google Drawings
6. Poetry, Maps, and Templates - Google Jamboard Activities to Try
7. Flipgrid Virtual Backgrounds - How and Why

On-demand Professional Development

• Ten Search Strategies Students Need to Know
• A Crash Course in Making & Teaching With Video
• A Crash Course in Google Earth & Maps for Social Studies

Other Places to Follow Me:

• The Practical Ed Tech Newsletter comes out every Sunday evening/ Monday morning. It features my favorite tip of the week and the week's most popular posts from Free Technology for Teachers.
• My YouTube channel has more than 37,000 subscribers watching my short tutorial videos on a wide array of educational technology tools. 
• I've been Tweeting as @rmbyrne for fourteen years. 
• The Free Technology for Teachers Facebook page features new and old posts from this blog throughout the week. 
• If you're curious about my life outside of education, you can follow me on Instagram or Strava.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include CloudComputin and WayBetterSite. Featured image captured by Richard Byrne.