Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Thing #9: (Not So) Randomly Generated Images


While working on the "Thing," I found the image the above on comicstripgenerator.com and was reminded of Vader's iconic line, "I find your lack of faith disturbing."  At the same time, I was reminded of an image I had seen once of Darth Vader as a substitute teacher*.  So, I played with the idea of "What if Darth Vader was a teacher?" and this little comic strip (and the one after the jump) were the results.



This one is a play on another of Vader's lines, this one from "The Empire Strikes Back."

At the last school I taught at, the school's cell phone policy was very strict:  students were allowed to have cell phones, but they had to be turned off during the school day (7:45 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.) or the cell phone would be taken up.  Of course, most students didn't turn off their cell phones, and a student's cell phone went off in class at least once a day.  So, a little reminder graphic, like the one below I made using the Word Mosaic tool on ImageChef, might have been useful:


That's just one way I could see using image generators in my classroom.  Using the same Word Mosaic tool, I could have students arrange vocabulary words or definitions into meaningful shapes that help them remember vocabulary.  For example, for the word "octagon," have students arrange the word into an eight-sided figure.  I can also see using image generators to have students create class-appropriate comic strips or "editorial cartoons."  Word Mosaics could also be used as visual essays.  Admittedly, not all of these would work with all classrooms, but are certainly possibilities.

*After doing a little searching, I managed to find the original artwork, which was this t-shirt design:  http://shirt.woot.com/friends.aspx?k=20829.

2 comments:

  1. Nathan, I loved the images you posted, very creative! The cell phone one is definitely useful, however, during my observations in the classroom I found that several students bring in labtops, kindles, and other technologies that are distracting to the learning process. It seems like every year we would have to add a new technology to the "please turn off" board!

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  2. Just wanted to say I loved the Vader art. I laughed so hard, probably since it was just a little unexpected. It's certainly important for those of us in the education field to have a good sense of humor, right? Thanks for a much-needed laugh.

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