Two Truths and a Lie

Sometimes a post pops up into your Twitter feed that inspires you to create something. This is what happened when Heather Lister posted about a website called the Breaking News Generator, and suggested using it to create fake news posts. I immediately thought about the “Two Truths and a Lie” game where participants have to determine which two statements are true and which statement is a lie. It also reminded me of the books by Laurie Ann Thompson and Ammi-Joan Paquette, as well as my Amazing Makerspace True Books.

                  

So I set out to create a Flipgrid topic using these “Breaking News” posts as the prompts. Take a look at the finished product.

There are several ways to transform images into videos, but this is how I did it. Follow the steps to create your own.

1 Decide on a topic to establish prior knowledge or to review content. Research the topic and write three statements that seem plausible, yet only two are actually true.

2 Use http://www.breakyourownnews.com to create three posts with appropriate headlines, tickers, and images.

       

3 Since Flipgrid only allows video submissions in .MOV. .MP4, and .WEBM format you must create a video file. First I take my image and use https://giphy.com to create a GIF. I like doing this because I can add stickers, text, and drawings to my images. This animation really gets students’ attention. If you create a free account, you will be able to save and access your GIFs online.

Here is my finished GIF.

4 Now go to https://ezgif.com/gif-to-mp4 to convert your GIFs to MP4 files so that you can upload them to Flipgrid.

5 Create a grid called “Two Truths and a Lie,” and then create separate topics for each activity. Upload your videos to responses to the prompt. You can either provide links to resources and databases, or require that your students locate their own as evidence. Share the link to the topic that you would like your students to focus on. After your students research the statements, they will determine which two of the three statements are true and which is a lie. Then they will record their reply to your response giving their opinion with evidence and citing their sources. Empower your students and encourage them to create their own “Two Truths and a Lie” Flipgrid activities.