Week 5 - PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster!

Week 5 brought with it Group 3 Digital Tools consisting of PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster, all interactive presentation tools that can be used either by ourselves as teachers presenting content or as a medium for students use to themselves.

These three digital tools are all have huge potential for engaging and effective learning within the classroom environment, therefore all require substantial effort and time in preparation and scaffolding to ensure they are utilised correctly.

First up… Power Points

Being introduced to interactive Power Points this week has breathed fresh air into what is often described as ‘death by Power Point’. Having started my embedded professional learning I have seen firsthand that a large majority of teachers rely on PowerPoints to present their classes and I feel they are leaning on the edge of ‘death by PowerPoint’. By using all the benefits PowerPoint has to offer like embedding YouTube clips, audio clips, hyperlinking within the presentation to create a quiz or hyperlinking to an external document of interest, a more exciting and interactive PowerPoint can be used to deliver course content. I imagine revamping standard PowerPoints to present Geography lessons, loaded with relevant YouTube clips and interactive quizzes to cater for a variety of learners, instead of just plain facts and statistics on every slide. In conjunction with PowerPoints, I also feel it would be productive to mix it up with the other two tools (at least) Prezi’s and Glogsters, to keep the classroom fresh and stimulating. As PowerPoint is also extremely user friendly it is a great resource for students to use to present individual or group assessments.

Follow the link to my website to see my PowerPoint using iSpring http://educationtoolkit.weebly.com/ . iSpring was simple to install and use with it's toolbar of options, however I could not embed the final product in my blog or wiki (despite several attempts and YouTube searches), still not sure what I did wrong.

 

Plus	Minus	Interesting
·         Can make interactive (who knew?) ·         User friendly ·         Free ·         Can update teachers slides and recycle for next year ·         Can embed video, audio, images, hyperlinks ·         Can be used by teachers to present or students to create and present	·         Be wary of ‘death by PowerPoint’ ·         Can limit flexibility in teaching practice ·         Can be time consuming to prepare	·         That they are widely used in most schools as a method of delivery ·         Need to download iSpring if want to publish interactive model

Next up…. Prezi

Prezi can be an amazing tool if used correctly (and if you have the patience). It does take a little extra time to set up, however can produce a real WOW factor presentation and would be a welcome change from PowerPoint af­­­ter PowerPoint. Prezi is best described as the PowerPoint of the 21^st century. It is more creative as it has more display options and has a smoother finish to the presentation itself. Video, audio and images can all be displayed like PowerPoint but the best effect Prezi has is probably the zoom in/ zoom out function which is created by placing all your info on a Prezi page and then outlining what you want to be the slides from that page. Another bonus is you can invite other people to edit the Prezi (only one at a time though), great for group work. The best tip is to YouTube how to create Prezi’s as it can get quite in depth and more than I have space for here. I could imagine presenting a new unit of work for either English or Geography, or even explaining assessments using a Prezi as it really is an attention grabbing tool and would be best utilised when delivering something important; could also easily be used by students to present assessment if they are becoming bored with PowerPoint. Below is a Group Prezi started by Kirsty Wales and edited by the group. I was responsible for the Secondary and VET sections.

Plus	Minus	Interesting
·         Impact factor ·         Free ·         Group editing ·         Has templates to work from ·         Can embed images, audio, video, pdfs, hyperlinks. ·         Another alternative to PowerPoint	·         Very time consuming to create ·         Fiddley to begin with ·         Must have internet connection to use	·         Can present online ·         Always look at YouTube for further ideas

 

Finally…. Glogster!

Glogster is so interesting. I originally only considered it as an element within a lesson however after seeing Michael’s Glogster in class (which was amazing!) I can now see how it could be used to present an entire lesson. Glogster is essentially an interactive, online poster board or scrapbook page although what you can stick on it is not just text and images but hyperlinks, audio and video. The Glogster I prepared (see below) was relatively simple to do, however I imagine to create one as detailed and professional as Michael’s was for my own senior English and Geography classes, would take quite some preparation time. After spending time within these classes though I believe Glogsters would have the best impact on students as it is something they are not familiar with in school context at least, and are very visually appealing as they are formatted similarly to a teen magazine page. I’d also suggest that students would much prefer creating their own Glogster page rather than a PowerPoint and probably a Prezi as well.

Plus	Minus	Interesting
·         All content delivered from one page ·         Free ·         Interesting for students to either be presented with or to use themselves ·         Can embed images, audio, video and hyperlinks ·         Has a variety of templates	·         Can be time consuming	·         Can either present a specific concept or an entire lesson

Another week done and I can feel my teachers resources wallet getting heavier and my future lessons getting more entertaining and effective all thanks Group 3 Digital Tools, PowerPoints, Prezi’s and Glogsters.

Thanks for reading,

Nicole.

Image and video acknowledgements:

PowerPoint YouTube clip: Natural Resources - An animation on Australia's Natural Resources by Skwirkonline

PowerPoint Australia image: Map of Australia, http://www.international.travel-tours.com

All other PowerPoint images from clipart search engine

Prezi YouTube clip: Beyond Textbooks

All Prezi images from Prezi image search engine

Glogster YouTube clip: Urban World (Megacities - metropolis with Andrew Murr) by screenocean

Glogster Megalopolis image: Wheii.com World, http://www.wheii.com

Glogster settlements image: Settlements > characteristics of settlements, http://www.learningontheinternet.co.uk

Glogster farm image: Delano, Jack, photographer, http://www.encore-editions.com

Glogster UK map image: ASCCUE _ Our Research Centre, http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk