Tech for Cultural Creativity: Character Ethnicity and Pedagogical Agents with Power Point
As a young girl, I rarely saw images that were representative of me in books and to be fair, most media. As a matter of fact, it was such a big deal to find a person with my skin that when we did see imagery reflective of us, it was as if we had somehow won a prize.
I can’t tell you how many times I uttered the phrase, “Oh my Gosh, she’s black!”
As an educator of color, I am always aware and careful to make sure that I use character imagery that it is not just inclusive but in most cases unapologetically black or brown. I do this for many reasons with the first being for my 7 year year old self who thought that black skin meant angry or bad.
I also do it because when in front of an audience of teachers, it never fails that somehow my slides full of such imagery lead to discussions as to why this intention is necessary.
These conversations are especially prevalent anytime students are interacting with media whether that is print or video. For this blog post, we are focusing on character imagery in instructional design and specifically the inclusion of black and brown pedagogical agents, which are character prompts that “help” or support learners throughout the lesson.
This isn’t a new concept at all and while many teachers have fallen down the “bitmoji rabbit hole”, there is value in students seeing a plethora of imagery reflective of their own identities as well as those that they have little interaction with…specifically including characters wearing hijabs…an act that isn’t centered on politics but on inclusion.
As a habitual google slides user, my workflow to do this work with intention was to search for images online or create characters using shapes. Both of these acts took an awful long time…hence why most stick to bitmoji since it is an extension, thus a copy/paste action.
I’ve also used tools like the Assembly app on ios or a number of “stickers or emoji” apps paired with the Google slides app which allowed me to quickly create and add a diverse collection of characters as needed.
Today, I started playing with PowerPoint and was pleasantly surprised to realize that through the Microsoft store with add-ins as well as the screen capture tool with the “remove background” button, I could not only create these pedagogical agents in the native PPT application but also online.
Powerpoint?!! Who knew?
Pixton Comic Characters and Emoji Keyboard Add-Ins (Available in the in-app Microsoft Store)
The Pixton Comic Character add-in provides a series of choices as shown in the image on the left. Each comic character can be customized through clothing poses. This is free with no login but if you want even more customization, that part is at cost. (The free part is perfect as is)
The header image for this blog was created using this tool as well as the emoji keyboard add-in, which allows even more creative customization and personality.
Web Tools with Screen Clipping and Background Remover
Head over to Marvel Kids and create a superhero or better yet, have your students do it. They can save their images and upload to a shared folder. Trust me, it’s simple.
In PPT, you simply create the image on the web, save it or use the internal screen clipper tool to capture the image and insert inside the document. Once inside, click the image, format and then remove background. PPT’s background removal tool has improved so much that it removed a background full of “spider webs” from the image above.
Another great tool for capturing characters is Google’s Made with Code emojify tool.
I started using Made with code as a character tool after working with a group of 5th graders to introduce computer science. Each girl created her own emoji and then used them to personalize a single slide.
I saw little black and brown girls squeal with joy upon seeing black and brown characters as choices but I also noticed the same in the one student who was muslim. While every other student chose and switched between “hats” representative of their careers, she never wavered in keeping on her hijab while switching between career costumes. That meant something and it was absolutely obvious.
Use Images of Your Students and Emojify Them
Again, using PPT’s background remover, use the “remove or add” selection tools to make a sort of sticker from their heads. With some creative layering using emojis, you can easily turn your students into “lesson guides” which can be self-esteem building and also a fun conversation piece, especially for younger kids.
This one might be my favorite of all.
Bottom line here is that there are a ton of ways and tools to add representation to your work. The most important part is doing it.
Seriously, Power Point???
Yeah, I’m shocked too!
