I recently discovered a really fun new (to me) tech tool, and typically when such a discovery happens, I like to brainstorm on HOW I can use this tool in the classroom. Well, this one is no different. I first saw slider images in action on Tony Vincent's blog when he talked about how he uses Adobe Illustrator to create his own clip art. The original photo and his graphic version were layered on top of each other, and there was a vertical "slider" bar that could be dragged right or left to reveal either of the two images. It's a really good way to show a comparison between two images
Well, I do a very similar graphics project in my 8th grade classes, only using Google Draw (see here). I was showing these "slider" images to my husband (you all know he's a teacher too, right?) and he decided to investigate and figure out how to make them for ourselves! He came across the website Juxtapose, which allows you to create these image overlay "sliders," which I think are extra fun:
Left photo via / Right photo created via Google Draw
Having recently seen Guardians of the Galaxy 2, I had to make myself a little Baby Groot illustration using Google Draw. But besides the photo-vs-drawing comparison, what else could I do using this slider concept? And I started brainstorming:
Left photo video still / Right background photo by Arno Smit
In Computer Literacy class, I could demonstrate how green screen technology works during our WeVideo project unit by overlaying an original video still over the same still with color keying added to it, in order to create a fun reveal.
But that benefits myself and my own class. I starting thinking about how OTHER classes and subject areas could also incorporate this into their lessons:
- You could use this technology in a Visual Arts class to reveal basic shapes in a still life, or reveal the path of movement that a viewer's eye travels within an artwork. You could overlay two color wheels: one "blank" version, and one labeled, for students to quiz themselves on color theory.
- You could use this technology in a Social Studies class to look at maps: either a blank vs labeled map for locations of geographic features, or two maps of the same area to show changes over time in borders and countries. You could also do a comparison of Presidential portraits showing the contrast between the beginning and ending of a term. Pretty interesting!
- In ELA classes, you can use sliders to show grammatical corrections of a sentence by using screen grabs or even just photos taken of a white board before vs after corrections. For early readers, you could use sliders as flash cards: a picture of an object could slide over to reveal the word name.
- A flash card concept using sliders would also be fun for World Languages. Use the same technique as the early reader concept, only utilize basic vocabulary terms for students to learn!
- Science classes can use this concept for all kinds of curricular concepts, like cause/effect, before and after, inside/outside, and "virtually" peel away the outer layer of pretty much any object! Think about how fun this could be for biology and anatomy, or earth science!
The Juxtapose site is pretty easy to use:
You copy and paste the URLs of the images you want to use for your slider, adjust any settings as desired, and click "publish!" I like using Google Photos for making slider images, as I can right-click on an image, select "copy image address," and then paste into the URL field in Juxtapose. You can even instantly preview your slider before you click "Publish!"
Once you publish your post, you can either share the link to your slider image, which shows it in a really nice full-screen mode (like this), or you can use the provided embed codes to put it on your webpage.
You can see some examples of slider images embedded into a web page in a Chicago Tribune article here.
What other fun classroom ideas can you think of where teachers could utilize slider images?
- Mrs L.
