The projects below presume that technology cannot be separated from nature, human nature, and communities of people working together. Therefore many of the projects take their lead from natural sources. Several projects will refer to 'honor albums'. These are computer presentations where visual images are set to a sound track and displayed on a computer, a website, or a television.
- "A Friend of Mine" ... This is an 'honor album' that uses visual images set to a sound track. You pick a friend you wish to honor. Then you surround this friend with the images that you feel will be representative and pay a special tribute. You choose the soundtrack the same way - it can include both music and voice.
- "Our School" ... This is an 'honor album' that uses visual images set to a sound track. You characterize the heart and soul of your school through photographic and artistic images. Set the images to music and use narration to portray the essence of what your school is all about. An animated introduction can kick off the mood of the piece.
- "Our Community: A Presentation" ... This is an 'honor album' that looks back to the best in our town's past, then looks forward to what it might become. You characterize the heart and soul of your town through photographic and artistic images, as well as personal interviews. Set the images to music and use voiceovers to portray the past treasures and hopes and dreams for our town. This can be created as a service to the public and presented both on a website and at a public meeting.
- "Our Community: A Dialogue" ... A public service can be offered to the community whereby the school maintains a website that is a forum for public opinion. The main discussion would deal with the community's greatest treasures from its past and the hopes and dreams for its future.
- "Our Logo" ... This project could be done by a group. Discover or re-discover the logo of the school through an interactive process. Interview students and teachers to find the meaning this school has for you. Even if this has been done before, the evolving logo for this year can be found. This can be expanded to include a logo for each class. Represent this as a graphical image. If you wish, animate this image and set it to music or a sound backdrop.
- "Song of Myself" ... Create a website that has movement from one graphical image to the next, accompanied by your favorite soundtrack. Pick photos that sum up your life. If words come to you - use them. If a voiceover seems to underscore your representation - so be it!
- "I Celebrate The Body Electric" ... Create a tribute to the human body that is both factual and artistic. Present the human body to a species as if it has never been seen before. Alternate between the presentation of factual information about our physical bodies and artistic renderings and poems about our affect on the world. Describe our biological, chemical, physical, and electric potential. Then describe our potential to do good works. Portray this entire presentation as a narration with a musical backdrop. If a visual component is desirable, add a series of images or video.
- Art Portfolio ... This is an 'honor album' that uses visual images set to a sound track. You collect representative artwork of a person or group and make a digital scrapbook of it. Some features that may aid the person viewing the portfolio are: written explanations, narrated descriptions in the artist's own voice, or a musical backdrop.
- "Students Unite!: A Revolution in the Classroom" ... This is an 'honor album' that uses visual images set to a sound track. Students study a small portion of an upcoming lesson and create a 3 - 10 minute narration with illustration that serves as a clear description - ON THEIR OWN. While the students teach, the teacher sits back a gets a break!
- "Learn by Teaching" ... This is an 'honor album' that uses visual images set to a sound track. Both the teacher and the class collaborate to create a mini-lesson on the computer. See if the honor album should be a supplement to your teaching or if it can stand by itself. Evaluate what is lost when you are not there to teach your students. See if others can learn from it. Also evaluate if you have learned the topic better by teaching it.
- 'Handles' ... Create your own personal name that you wish to be known by when addressed by email or on the web. Write the 'About' portion of your own web page that explains the derivation of your name. Reference what inspired your name and the reasons you like it.
- Digital Tattoos ... Design and animate a moving graphical image that can be used as your signature on emails and printed on documents.
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Digital Haiku ... Write the equivalent of a poem using only shapes and
forms as your message. Or compose the equivalent of a poem in words using
colors that move with and into one another. Or combine words, color and
form as your poem. Add a soundtrack. Now what is it: a movie, a painting,
a poem?
- Legacy Albums ... Interview an elderly person in the community over several meetings. Jointly create a digital scrapbook that sums up this person's life. Include photos, artwork, voice recordings, newspaper clippings, and stories from friends or relatives, favorite songs. Proceed from an interview outline and be ready for the unexpected.
- Interactive Reports ... Write a report on computer that teaches others. Make the subject into a lesson. Ask questions of your reader. Give choices of the paths they may choose if it enhances their learning experience.
- Teaching Practicum ... Prepare a mini-lesson to teach the class. Be the teacher - use an interactive computer aided outline if it can enhance your creation process or your presentation - do not use any technology if you judge it to get in the way of true learning.
- Goethean Comparative Reports ... Study a class of processes that group themselves in kind the way Goethe studied several plants and 'saw' a main form of a plant 'behind' the many. Compare them to each other to find the similarities and differences. Do this analytically to compare and contrast their parts. Then, do this holistically to see if there seems to be a form or gesture 'behind' some of the things you observe. If the group of things you study can be represented visually, create an computer slide show that plays them in a sequence. Some topics to study are:
- Things that can fly. You might include: birds, airplanes, seeds, flies, bees, butterflies, hang gliders, and global weather fronts.
- Things that defy gravity. You might include: tree limbs, warm air, plants, certain dancers, volcanoes, and bees.
- Things that alternately shrink and swell. You might include: flower blossoms, lungs, and cold and warm air fronts.
- Things that recursively revise themselves. You might include: a story you write, voice recognition software, The Fibonacci number series, fractal designs, the sequence of types of trees that tend to grow in an open field in your part of the world, the sequence of wild plants that will grow in an area if left to itself.
- Science-Fantasy Story ... Write a short story that is science fiction where a process in one part of nature is found playing in another area. Examples follow. - The musical scale of discreet notes is found to have counter parts that exist in gravity - gravitational steps as it were. The main character finds a way to adjust the different 'notes' of gravity. Or do this with electricity, or magnetism, or light, or color. - The virtually friction-free conditions on the ice pond can suddenly apply to the resistance between rivals in a family. Or do this with water, or air, or warring nations, or electric force fields.
- 'Extra (Credit) Ordinary' ... Investigate ANY ordinary thing until you find how it is extraordinary and you receive extra credit. Derive the origin, uses, and glorification of your thing. Write about it or make a tribute to it with a digital, multimedia, honor album.