Internalizing Academic Vocabulary with Animated GIFs

Deposition. Affixes. Stanza. Numerator.

Kids are bombarded with a multitude of academic vocabulary every single day. We hope they remember the terms and pray they can include some of them in their written responses, but are we giving our students the time and opportunity to truly internalize them?

Our campus recently went through APL and our specialist's suggestion to use Keynote's animated gifs for vocabulary really hit home with me. I think it's a great activity to help our students internalize academic terms. They have to think critically on how to "show" the meaning of words, which helps them develop a better understanding of the vocabulary.

 

Lyrical gif

We can take this activity even further by having students create their own animated word walls in Numbers or generating QR codes to make interactive word walls in our classroom.

 

Stanza gif

Our Techsperts learned about vocabulary gifs this week and look forward to sharing the idea and skills with teachers soon. We're hoping to inspire others to give it a try and hope you do too.

#wearelcp

3 replies

November 16, 2023

I love this type of creative learning. It can resonate with so many of our students. It is hands on and takes only a short amount of time to complete, but the return on investment is so high! These are the types of activities that can show student learning in such a dynamic way!!

November 18, 2023

What a great way for students to show deep understanding of academic vocabulary! I love your idea of having a digital word wall through QR codes or in Numbers! Through collaboration, students can learn from each other.

November 24, 2023

What a great idea! There is such power in using animation and Motion Graphics with Keynote to help students consider the meaning of words, texts and poetry!

A great extension of this could be to add audio recordings directly into Keynote of students reading (or singing!) the words/text. Or, go even further by recording audio and music in GarageBand and then bring it all together — GarageBand audio and Keynote animated graphics — in iMovie or Clips!

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