Digital publishing is an engaging way to encourage students to connect to a historic topic. As we focus on our nationally recognized inclusion months students can use digital tools not only to publish what they’ve learned but also to show the impact of that event.
I created a sampler for teachers Lost Liberty on Apple Books to demonstrate this lesson idea. It uses primary sources from the Library of Congress and Pages on iPad to explain how students can use Image Gallery in an overlay fashion. A number of “closer in” photographs are in the slide overs and a “from a distance” shot anchors the idea so it goes from long view to a personalize look. This also gives students agency to select and process images that reflect their understanding and show the impact of the event.
In this album I’ve included some screen shots so you can see what the process might look like.
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That is really cool. How do you do that? I think that would be a valuable way to present primary sources.
Edited
Thank you Cheryl Best. In journalism the process is called mortis (a related photo that overlaps or is inset into a larger photo) I don’t see that term used very often. The process is pretty simple and can be done on a slide or in a word processing doc, just place one photo over the other. What I like about Pages is that the overlay can be multiple photos so that they can be swiped to change photos without changing the larger image. I outline the steps in the book.
The hardest part (and the one we want students to work with) is the selection of the photos. In the case of the Japanese American Internment there are many to select from in the Library of Congress. The Pholographs are stunning and heartbreaking. I spent hours finding just the ones I wanted that expressed the message I saw in the primary sources.
Cate Cooney added a reply and a link to your wonderful Perspectives Album that discussed the different perspectives of the photographers and the task that was given to them by the FSA/OWI. Ansel Adams is more of a landscape photographer and Dorothea Lange and others were more like photojournalist. You could see that in the photography. Even though Adam’s photos depicted some people smiling you could still understand the message he was sending.
If students have a project like this (especially in High School) where they do the researching and selecting of photos in order to understand the impact of an event and create an engaging artifact to express that knowledge, my experience has been that they will retain and understand that learning in a meaningful way.
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