Big Huge Labs: Create a Calendar

Details

Activity Description

Flickr Toys, also known as Big Huge Labs, is the Website for doing creative, fun projects with digital images that the user uploads, or by using Flickr images, Photobucket images, or entering the URL (Web address) for an online image.

By uploading a photo, a wide range of special effects can be added, including adding a museum-style matte, making a jigsaw puzzle from a photo, making a mosaic from several pictures, adding photo frames, giving a photo a Warhol effect (a la Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pop art—see sample below), transforming a photo into bead art, making a cube of photos, making a photo collage, and creating a pocket-sized photo album.

For literacy, ABE, and other classes, the site's other image tools can be used as the bases for writing and speaking assignments. The types of projects both instructors and students can do using the site are numerous.

For this activity, have students make a monthly calendar with a class photo.

Preparation

1. Check that the site is not blocked at your school site.
2. Go through instructions for making a calendar.
3. Take a class picture.
4. Make a calendar with the photo for example.

How-To

1. Discuss time management.
2. Demo the Big Huge Labs Web site and particularly the calendar maker
3. Have students use a digital camera to take pictures in class to use on their personal calendars. (If a separate digital camera is not available, many cellphones have cameras and could be used for this.)
4. Enter assignments, projects, test dates on calendar.
5. Maintain calendar for upcoming month.

Teacher Tips

The sky is the limit on ways to incorporate images into student writing. This site makes that more possible.

More Ways

Here are some other tools you may find useful at Big Huge Labs:

• Badge Maker (Make one’s own name card to help the instructor and classmates remember one’s name)
• Billboard (Make billboard signs for the classroom listing class rules, providing information about upcoming events, giving reminders)
• Captioner (Add speech call-outs and thought bubbles to a photo; students can make comic strips, illustrate dialogs, give advice)
• CD Cover (Make a CD cover for a favorite song or favorite musical group or to make a DVD cover for a favorite movie and make a class presentation, sharing song lyrics or giving a summary of a movie)
• Magazine Cover (Make a visual aide to accompany a writing assignment or presentation based on news stories or “if you could be famous”)
• Motivator (Create motivational posters with images and famous quotes or proverbs for the classroom)
• Movie Poster (Make a movie poster to accompany a written movie review, to advertise one’s favorite movie, or to accompany a movie trailer script writing assignment about the “story of my life”)
• Slideshow (Make an end-of-term slideshow featuring photos of students)
• Trading Card Maker (“Honor and immortalize someone”; students can upload their own photos and add their own biographical information or gather biographical information to make trading cards for their heroes, their family members, favorite singers, movie stars, artists, athletes)

Program Areas

• ABE: Adult Basic Education

Levels

• Low
• Intermediate
• High
• All Levels

Subjects

• Writing
  • Basic Sentences

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