Creating a Picture Book

Overview

Jennifer Neill is a teacher at Alexander Peden Primary School in North Lanarkshire. This year Jennifer’s remit has been to share a Primary Two class with a probationer teacher and support the other teachers in the school with the roll out of Glow. To do this she regularly meets with class teachers to discuss what interdisciplinary work they are completing in class and they look at ways in which Glow can complement and support this. At present all pupils in the school have Glow logons and are actively using Glow.

Context

In Primary 4 the pupils were looking at story books, so Jennifer decided to use Glow to support this area of Literacy. Scott Clark (North Lanarkshire Glow Development Officer) suggested a website called Artisancam, Picture Book Maker to Jennifer. This resource provides a template which allows pupils to create their own picture book online, and they choose their own text and pictures.  The pupils then save their picture book and are given a link so they can access it online.  Jennifer provided a page in the P4 Glow Group called Creating a Book. Using this resource Jennifer gave the pupils a task of designing a picture book for Primary 1 and 2 pupils. Within the P4 Glow Group, Jennifer and Scott set up the page with was a Page Viewer of the Artisancam website. She also provided an area where the pupils could share their picture books and added a Discussion Board for peer assessment.

Click on the video to listen to Jennifer explain the Literacy Task. (1.05)

How was the Creating a Book Page used by Primary Four?

There are a number of areas within this page:

Tex Editor

The Text Editor web part was used to give the pupils instructions describing how to complete the task.

Page Viewer

The Artisancam website was viewed directed by the pupils using a Page Viewer Web part. This allowed the pupils to work on their picture books with out having to leave their Glow group.

Web links Web Part

When the pupils published their picture book, they were given the URL to link to their picture book.  The pupils saved the URLs into the Web links web part, so they could view each other’s work.

Discussion Board

A Discussion Board was used to self and peer assess the picture books. The pupils did this by using 2 stars and a wish.

This topic has covered many First Level Curriculum for Excellence Experiences and Outcomes:

LIT 1-06a I can select ideas and relevant information, organise these in a logical sequence and use words which will be interesting and/or useful for others.

LIT 1-11a I regularly select and read, listen to or watch texts which I enjoy and find interesting, and I can explain why I prefer certain texts and authors.  

LIT 1-20a I enjoy creating texts of my choice and I regularly select subject, purpose, format and resources to suit the needs of my audience. 

LIT 1-21a I can spell the most commonly-used words, using my knowledge of letter patterns and spelling rules and use resources to help me spell tricky or unfamiliar words. 

ENG 1-31a Having explored the elements which writers use in different genres, I can use what I learn to create my own stories, poems and plays with interesting structures, characters and/or settings.

TCH 1-04b I can create, capture and manipulate sounds, text and images to communicate experiences, ideas and information in creative and engaging ways.

Ingredients

What did Jennifer need to set up the Creating a Book page?

1. Class Glow Group
2. New page
3. Page Viewer
4. Web links web part
5. Discussion Board

Recipe

In the following videos, we will take a look at the P4 Creating a Book page and find out how to replicate some of its structure and content.

What does the P4 Creating a Book page look like? (2.03)

How to create a new page in your Glow Group. (0.42)

How to add a Text Editor web part. (1.40)

 How to add a Page Viewer web part. (2.01)

How to create a web links web part and change the settings. (2.12)

How to create a Discussion board. (2.23)

 Impact

Jennifer feels that using Glow to support this project enabled the pupils to develop their technology skills, as the pupils used a website to make their final product. She also feels that this project helped to develop the pupil’s communications skills as they had to work with a partner to discuss and create their storybook. The benefit of using Glow to support the project was that the pupils were able to view each other’s final products and peer assess the story books using 2 stars and a wish.

Listen to Jennifer explain the impact of using Glow to support this Literacy topic. (0.32)

Other related Cookbooks:

Primary Two – Farmer George’s Farm

Debating in Primary Seven

Creating a Picture Book5.052