How to help your kid make digital projects: slideshows, spreadsheets and family videos

There's a big difference between using technology and making things with it. Watching videos is using. Planning the family road trip in a spreadsheet, building a slideshow for Grandma's birthday or editing the summer vacation video is making. This skill, the top of the Digital Skills branch, is about kids becoming creators who build things their family actually uses.

What schools aim for

The Computer Science Teachers Association's standards for grades 3 to 5 include organizing and presenting collected data visually to highlight relationships and support a claim, and using public domain or Creative Commons media rather than copying other people's work without permission.

The U.S. Institute of Education Sciences' writing guide recommends helping kids become fluent with typing and word processing. Slideshows and spreadsheets are where those skills get put to work.

Skill 1: A slideshow or spreadsheet for a family project

1. Pick what it's for, like a trip.
2. Make the slides or the table.
3. Add titles, and pictures or colors.
4. Show it to your family.

Slideshow ideas: "Our summer in 10 photos," a pitch for a family pet, a birthday tribute, "5 facts about the place we're visiting."

Slideshow tips:

• One idea per slide.
• Few words, big pictures. Slides support what you say; they don't replace it.
• Use your own photos, or images marked as free to use. That's the "public domain or Creative Commons" habit from the CS standards.

Spreadsheet ideas: a trip packing list with checkboxes, a chore chart, a reading log, a savings tracker.

Spreadsheet basics worth learning: rows and columns, a header row, sorting, and one simple formula like SUM to add a column. A savings tracker that adds itself up feels like magic. (More on tracking numbers in tracking data and making charts.)

Skill 2: Edit a short video

1. Pick the best clips.
2. Trim the parts you don't need.
3. Add a title or music.
4. Keep it in the family, not online.

Short is better. A tight one-minute video beats a rambling ten-minute one. Editing is mostly about cutting.

Music and media: use music built into the editing app, or tracks marked free to use. Respecting other people's work is part of being a good digital creator.

Why "keep it in the family"? Family videos show faces, voices, homes and places. The AAP's Family Media Plan is a good place to agree on what gets shared and with whom. Sharing with grandparents directly gives kids an audience without posting publicly.

The challenge: a digital project the family uses

The mastery goal is to create a digital project for the family, like a trip plan, a budget sheet or a recipe book, and have the family actually use it.

1. Plan what goes in your project.
2. Build it one part at a time.
3. Ask for feedback and improve it.
4. Share it with your family, not online.

Project ideas:

"The family uses it" is the real test. A recipe book nobody opens isn't done yet. Ask: "What would make you actually use this?" Then improve it. That's feedback and iteration, the same cycle the CS standards describe for programs.

Pair it with real responsibility. If your child builds the trip packing list, let them run the packing. (More on budgets in budgeting.)

Coaching tips

• Let them pick the app, from ones you've approved.
• Teach one feature at a time. Nobody needs to learn every menu.
• Save often, and keep a backup.
• Celebrate the use, not just the look. "We used your packing list and didn't forget a thing!"

Make it a quest

In Family Quests, this is the Digital Maker skill, the top of the Digital Skills branch and the last skill in the whole tree. Practice quests are make a slideshow or spreadsheet for a family project and edit a short video, and the mastery quest is create a digital project for the family (trip plan, budget sheet, recipe book). Apps are ones your grown-up OKs, projects stay in the family, and any photo proof is deleted once you've reviewed it. Start free.

Next: go back to digital citizenship, or read about finishing a creative project.