"Web 2.0- It's a No-Brainer"

How could anyone who "poo poo's" Web 2.0 tools look at these Tagxedo's by my 5th and 6th graders, and think they are a waste of time? These kids are studying the civil war, and though they do find slavery and the whole battle thing exciting, this art project was high on their favorite's list. First we brainstormed every word that they could think of that THEY knew about The Civil War. Many words were repeated, but that's was ok because Tagxedo changes the size of the font depending how often the words are repeated. We had 4 students recording the words as they were shouted out, then they emailed them to me in a Word doc and I edited, and condensed them into one doc. We went online and looked at some Tagxedo's, namely the one with Abe Lincoln with the Gettysburg Address inside his portrait, and decided on what "shape" they wanted to depict for their piece. After drawing and Mrs. Schaa uploading them to Tagxedo, they got to work, changing the font, color, layout with the words "they" came up with about The Civil War. Lots of ownership here! It is truly an exciting time to be an educator!