Being a technology teacher, I am always looking for new projects for my students. I’m all over anything that can both engage them and teach them new content.

For this blog post, I’ve come up with my Top 5 favorite technology projects that my students have done. These projects aren’t tied to a specific content area and can be used across a wide range of grade levels. The examples here were done by high school students, but you can scale them back or forward to best fit your students’ needs and grade level.

5. Knight Lab’s StoryMap Project: https://storymap.knightlab.com/

Knight Lab is a team at Northwestern University composed of technologists, journalists, designers, and educators working to advance media innovation and education. They have created a publishers’ toolbox with free tech tools for educators to use in their classrooms, and one of those is StoryMap.

StoryMap lets you tell stories on the web that highlight the location of a series of events. What’s awesome about this free tool is the variety of content areas that fit into this: English classes can have students “map out” a character’s journey in a novel, history classes can track migration patterns of ethnic groups over time, science classes can look at the spread of a plague over a given country, and much more. StoryMap allows you to add media items (YouTube videos, pictures, etc.) to each of your locations as well as your own titles, explanations, and pin drops. Check out an Advanced Computer Application student’s example of a World’s Fair StoryMap here (and shown above), and another student's example from the TV show Survivor here.

4. Pixlr Project: https://pixlr.com/editor/

Pixlr is free, online editing software. It’s similar to Adobe Photoshop, but (I think!) easier to use and navigate, and has an online library where you can save all of your work. I had my students do five different mini projects in Pixlr, each with a different goal to work on different editing skills:

• Re-create a movie poster (see Holes example)
• Using information from a website, create a flyer for an upcoming event
• “Photobomb” a picture of themselves into another one
• Edit and enhance a picture of a landscape
• Create something new and original in Pixlr

Pixlr can be used across content areas—not just for photo editing, but for an array of different creation projects: posters, webs, diagrams, infographics, and much more.

3. Hero Project: http://www.heromachine.com/heromachine-2-5-character-portrait-creator/

The main component students use to create their Hero Project is Google Slides, which is essentially Google’s version of PowerPoint. Students first learn how to navigate through Slides and use all of the components before tackling their Hero Project, which challenges them to create a 12-slide presentation detailing every aspect of the hero that they create.

Students use Hero Machine to create their hero. They then start building their hero’s background and story through the 12 slides, with specific requirements for each. They’ll embed videos, insert images, changes fonts and backgrounds, use Tagul to create a descriptive word cloud, and then, when they are all finished, they’ll present them to the class.

2. Knight Lab’s Timeline Project: http://timeline.knightlab.com/

Another one of Knight Lab’s cool, free tools is their Timeline. Beginners can create an interactive timeline using nothing more than a Google spreadsheet, which is provided for you. Experts can use their JSON skills to create custom installations, while keeping Timeline’s core look and functionality. Students can embed pictures and videos, and customize their dates, events, titles, and descriptions. When they’re done building a timeline, they can embed it into a website or grab the URL to share. I had my students choose an area of interest to them (history of, life story, etc.). Here is a student example of the life of Walt Disney, and here is another of the history of the Disney Channel.

1. WeVideo Project: https://www.wevideo.com/

Whether a simple slideshow or an elaborate movie trailer, I am a huge fan of video projects because they allow for total student creativity and “outside the box” thinking to take place. I have used them in every area that I’ve taught, and they have always been met with huge success—students love doing them, and I love seeing their knowledge and understanding of the content on display in a form other than answering questions on a worksheet. However, one of the limitations I’ve run into with video projects is that they are reserved to a single device (computer or tablet) because they are usually housed on an app built into that device. This becomes a problem when doing a group video project and the one student’s device that the project is housed on is absent. I found that this would always happen with group video projects, and I’d always end up bumping back the due date to accommodate the groups that may have had a project absence during their work time. I wanted my students to be able to collaborate on a digital project, such as a movie, but didn’t want them to be limited to this type of collaboration solely in class and on one device. Earlier this year I came across my new favorite collaborative tool for a digital environment and these types of projects: WeVideo.

WeVideo is video-editing software similar to iMovie for Mac or Movie Maker for PC, except that it’s entirely web-based and allows for multiple users to be “shared” on projects and thus work on, contribute, and collaborate at the same time, as long as they have an Internet connection. It’s amazing how much more work my students can get done, both in and out of class. Students can access, edit, and share their projects on one computer, and pick up exactly where they left off on another computer (or even a mobile device, like an iPhone). Not once this year have I had to bump back a due date or deal with a “project absence” excuse during class work time; their projects are always accessible and always available, regardless of whether all of their group members are in class that day. I had my students first get their feet wet using WeVideo by doing a sample project where I provided the media pieces, and they needed to fit them together. Here are two examples: Unconventional Frogger (shown above) and The Wondrous World.  

I have absolutely seen an increase in engagement, usage, and creativity as a result of the educational technology that enables these creative projects. I definitely encourage any teachers out there looking for easy, collaborative tech tools to check them out. You will not be disappointed, and neither will your students!

Do you have a favorite EdTech site to share, or tips for incorporating digital projects into your curriculum? We'd love to hear from you! Please post any ideas or questions in the comment field below.