44 Diverse Tools To Publish Student Work
by TeachThought Staff
Educators are often admonished to design work that ‘leaves the classroom.’
This is partly a push for authenticity. Work that is “real world” will naturally be more engaging to students because it has more chance to have credibility in their eyes, and usefulness in their daily lives. This kind of work has value beyond the current grading period and culminating report card.
But work that is made public has other benefits as well. If someone besides the teacher is actually going to read it, students may be more willing to engage their hearts and minds in their work. This kind of work is also often iterative–done in stages, with drafts, revisions, collaboration, and rethinking. It’s design work, and as design work, it gives students a chance to show what they know. This is one of the gifts of digital and social media, and an idea we’ve approached before with 7 Creative Apps That Allow Students To Show What They Know.
Publishing Student Work vs Assessment
In lieu of its perceived art and science, assessment is a murky practice.
Anything a student ‘does’ can be used as a kind of assessment. What the say, write, draw, diagram, create, or otherwise manifest that is then shared with someone else is evidence of thinking. This can be taken as a snapshot–create a video that clarifies the cause-effect relationship of pollution and the water cycle–or something more project-based and done over time, such as a storyboarding, creating, drawing, and publishing a comic book character over a 8 part series that explores the issue of bullying over social media.
Either way, because the work is mobile and digital and easily shared, its ripe for both assessment and sharing with authentic audiences in the real world.
When students publish their thinking with their right audience or collaborators at the right time, the tone and purpose of the work are able to shift dramatically. The following tools either allow you to publish student work online (e.g., YouTube, Prezi, wevideo), or create something digital that can then be published in relevant contexts (e.g., Story Me, Book Creator, Puppet Pals HD).
The tools to publish student work are separated into 11 varied categories that run the spectrum of digital publishing, a list that’s nearly as useful as the graphic itself. You can find the list, graphic, and tools below courtesy of Tony Vincent from learninginhand.com.
11 Categories Of Digital Tools To Publish Student Work
- Audio Recordings
- Collages
- Comic Books
- Posters
- Slide Presentations
- Digital Books
- Narrated Slideshows
- Movies
- Animations
- Screencasts
- Study Aids
44 Diverse Tools To Publish Student Work
