The Visual Learner (below)

Overview
Educators are finding more and more that they must teach to specialized learning styles. Some students learn more easily from visual input. The teacher’s repertoire of strategies should include visual learning activities. Creative use of technology may enhance these activities.

Rebus Activity
Use Word or PowerPoint to create a story or sentence framework. Students can use a combination of words and pictures to complete the story, or read a prewritten story and fill in the words. Certain sounds or words may be emphasized to coincide with instruction.

Show Me Math
With the video camera, record a graphic demonstration of a math operation. Students will choose an operation, the manipulatives, or create the story to show what happens in the problem.

Counting M&M’s
Students will open a bag of M&M’s and separate the colors. They will use an Excel spreadsheet to record the specifications of the M&M candy makers and compare to the actual amounts. Students may also create a real graph using the candy.

Story Map
Students will read a story. Using Word or a PowerPoint slide and tools from the Drawing toolbar, students will create a linear story map of the plot. They may incorporate pictures, sound, or moving graphics.

Symmetry Exercise
Student pairs will take digital photographs of each other’s faces. They will use a photo editor such as Adobe Photoshop Elements to flip half of the face over the other half, creating two symmetrical faces, each different from the original picture. They will then look at visual aids and discuss whether the images are symmetrical or not.

Digital Vacation
Students will use digital photographs of themselves and a photo editor. They will “cut” themselves from the original photograph and insert the cutout into a photograph of a well-known landmark or landscape. They will then write a short narrative about, “My Vacation to…”

Graphic Organizer
Using Inspiration®, students will create a visual organizer of information about a chosen topic. They may use graphics or pictures to show information.

Directional Charade Cards
Students will create a set of direction cards to demonstrate an action or sequence of events. They must not use words or numbers, only graphic information (drawings, diagrams, etc.) Groups will follow each other’s directions to see how effective the cards are.

Category Choices
Students will use a variety of objects to categorize. They will glue the items to a category card and write the category criteria on the back. Groups will try to guess the criteria of the grouping.

Picture Perfect
Using Word or PowerPoint, students will arrange a series of pictures into the order in which they happened or arrange a set of pictures that have a common theme. They can also choose a picture that does not fit the theme and explain their reasoning.

You Don’t Say!
Students will choose clip art from the Metaphor library depicting a figure of speech. They will type the figure of speech as a title and explain its “literal” and “figurative” meanings in writing. They may do two or three on a page.