Thursday, April 2, 2015

Google It! Medieval Europe PowerPoint Project

I'm sure you have heard the phrase "Google it!"  I was inspired by this phrase to create a project in which students created their own interactive PowerPoint presentation by recreating a Google logo and thematic slides on one standard of Medieval Europe.  For example, a student who researched the "bubonic plague" created a Google logo designed to imitate the disease and its devastating effects on Medieval Europe and then linked each letter of their "Google" logo to thematic slides including:  a VTS (Visible Thinking Strategy) slide (to invite group discussion), a map, an informational writing slide (narrative, fairy tale, news article, etc.), and a final slide of their choice (collage, diagram, quiz, cause-and-effect chart, point of view slide, etc.). Some students even used Kahoot to create game quizzes to test their teammates learning at the end of their presentations. When finished with their PowerPoints, students also linked the "Google Search" button to the best web site they could find on their topic.  This week, students took turns teaching their peers what they learned as they presented their "Google It!" PowerPoint presentations, which included their own student-initiated VTS discussions and Kahoot quizzes.  Students also took notes on each presentation in the form of a Mind Map on paper, PowerPoint, or using Coggle (online mind-mapping). Enjoy some impressive and quite creative work below!