Thanks for joining me today for "Circulating Ideas" where I will share some ways for educators and students to create engaging presentations. Students need a way to share their ideas in a way they LOVE! Oral presentations with a page of notes or index cards and PowerPoint presentations that they read to the class are overdone and boring. They love technology, but don't know many options for sharing their ideas. It's up to us as educators to help them find new ways to share ideas and information. (1 min)

This is one of the most intimidating places in the classroom for students. They feel that everyone is judging them. They worry that their presentation is not good enough. We can help them get over their fear of speaking in front of their classmates by giving them the tools to be confident and succeed.

It can also be difficult to keep student attention when we give lectures in this way. We need a change. We need alternate ways to present information in an easy and interesting way.

(1 min)

My name is Tara Williams. I am a teacher at Glade Spring Middle School in Washington County, Virginia. I teach 8th grade English and Art 6, 7, and 8. I am also a graduate student at ODU. I'm working on my Master's in Education with certification in Library Science. The tools I will be sharing are ones I have learned about on my educational journey. I will be sharing tools I think are extremely useful, how to use them in the library and classroom, and some things you need to know before using them. All of these are recommended for middle and high school as they require some technology experience to operate. I will be explaining some ways that both teachers and students can create great presentations.

(2 min)

PowToon is a video creation tool. It creates animated videos, with already animated characters and has options for transitions, text effects, and templates. I prefer no template because it's just easier to start from scratch unless you are following a very specific template format. You can add music or voice overs as well. Because they are cartoons, they are fun to watch as well as make. The accounts are free for both teachers and students. Each user must sign up for his or her own account, so students have to be able to start their own accounts.

I would recommend this for more technologically advanced students because it requires attention to detail in creating the slides. You have to set the number of seconds per slide for the video and set the times for when things happen.

(2 min)

One way to use this tool is to create videos yourself to share with students. With PowToon, I don't think you can teach a student to use it unless you have tried it. You can share tips with your students and then encourage them to share something important to them. Everyone is an expert at something, so have students explore this tool by first sharing their expertise.

Here's a video I created to give tips on ways to choose books to read.

http://www.powtoon.com/p/dvPQOdWYBEz/

(3 min)

All Virginia Standards of Learning for English from 4th grade through 12th grade include a Media Literacy portion. For example, English 8.3 states that "The student will analyze, develop, and produce creative or informational media messages." Part C includes "Use media and visual literacy skills to create products that express new
understandings." Wouldn't PowToon be a great tool for creating media messages and students to share new understandings? They can make an ad or explain a concept through cartoon.

(1 min)

All students need to be able to synthesize what they read. This involves putting together their prior knowledge and what they have learned from their reading. Creating book trailers is a great way to do this, and PowToon is such a fun tool for book trailers because it also allows for uploading images so that students can choose pictures of how they imagine the setting and what they think are important symbols. They can also animate an important event in the story with the cartoon characters provided.

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Pros to PowToon:
It is an engaging format to get your audience's attention.
There is a great sense of accomplishment in seeing the final video come together perfectly.
Free for teachers and students

Cons:
Templates are limiting.
It takes a while to get used to setting up the slide without using a template.

Any questions about PowToon?

Does anyone have any ideas about how you might use PowToon at your school?

(3 min)

Piktochart is an infographic creation tool. You may have seen infographics online before, especially if you check out blogs, Pinterest, Facebook, or other information-sharing sites. They are a way to teach information in a quick, one-page format with pictures and charts to make the information quickly digestible. Infographics are clean looking and easy to create. You or your students can make your own infographics, which are easy to read online and would look great printed out as a poster.

These infographics are easy to create, with many templates with the free Education account. It does have limits on the content you can use with the free account, but is enough to create a variety of looks. For free accounts, each user must create his or her own account, and infographics can only be published publicly.

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One way I have used this tool is to share completion of my reading goals. You can see here a section of my infographic with my most read authors, books read monthly, and the intended audience of the books I read. You choose the template and colors for everything so it looks very streamlined. Infographics are useful for sharing any type of data because they have so many options for charts and graphs.

Challenge students to set a reading goal at the beginning of the school year and keep a log of what they read. At the end of the school year, they can create their own infographic to share what they accomplished. You could even choose one of the free templates for students to use as a basic format that you want them to follow.

Here's the full version of my infographic:

https://magic.piktochart.com/output/2147481-books-i-read

It can be viewed as an infographic or a presentation (section by section) if you want to have students present their data as larger slides.

(2 min)

Here is a sample of another infographic I made in Piktochart. This one is my syllabus for my English 8 class this year. I could easily include my grading policies, my contact information, supplies needed, and more, but it looks nicer than the usual Word document I hand out for a syllabus. I printed it out for students and also posted in on my class website for students and parents to easily access.

This idea could be transferred to whole-school data as well. Wouldn't this be a great visual way to share school information for families new to your school? You could share policies and stats on the website or make a handout for them to pick up in the office when they visit. End of the year information could also be presented in this way, like cumulative school test scores, names of notable students and teachers who won awards throughout the year, and more.

Here's the link to my syllabus:
https://magic.piktochart.com/output/2379551-english-8-syllabus

(1 min)

All of the middle and high school Virginia Standards of Learning for science incorporate experiments and tracking data. For example, the Physical Science SOL PS.1 states "The student will demonstrate an understanding of scientific reasoning, logic, and the nature of science by planning and conducting investigations..." This includes taking measurements, charting data in a variety of ways, and sharing results. Piktochart would be a fun way to share those results and publish them online for everyone to see.

(1 min)

Piktochart could be used to share research for history classes as well. Since infographics focus on data, students could create timelines, show trends over time, and share important events with dates, key people and places involved, and more. They could focus on a specific event in history or cover an era simply by making an infographic of what they have discovered. For example, when studying the American Revolution, students could cover a series of key events, one event like the signing of the Declaration, or a single person, like Patrick Henry. Dates and facts are easy to convey in infographics.

(1 min)

Pros to Piktochart:
It is a great format for sharing information that you already need to share.
It gets the audience's attention quickly.
Data and statistics are easy to read.
Free for teachers and students

Cons:
It takes a while to make one, so don't expect an immediate infographic to emerge for you. You have to do all the design work.
Limited templates in the free version.

Any questions about Piktochart?

Does anyone have any ideas about how you might use Piktochart at your school?

(3 min)

Narrable is a storytelling tool. It involves uploading photos and adding narration. This is a wonderful way for students to be able to record their thoughts. It is a sort of recorded oral presentation.

Pictures must be uploaded from the computer or from Facebook, so the pictures must already be ready to add to the project and saved to that computer. This might be difficult if students don't have the pictures they want or need for their project. This could mean that the first step to the project would have to be taking or finding and saving the necessary photos.

Narration can be done on the site or can be uploaded from an mp3 or mp4 file. This means it can be customized for how tech-savvy you and your students are.

Students can create their own accounts and make up to 5 narrables, or teachers can create a teacher account and assign student accounts. Teachers are given the log-in information and administration privileges for the accounts such as setting who can edit a narrable project, plus it gives students access to collaborate with one another. Student and teacher accounts are both free. Projects can be set to public, which can only be viewed by those with the link, or private so that no one but the creator can see them.

Narrable is created with education in mind, so it actually has a section with lesson plans, which are history and geography ideas, but there is also a blank lesson plan template, a storyboarding template, and a blank rubric.

(2 min)

As it is intended as a storytelling tool, this is the most logical way to use it in the classroom. However, storytelling can include so many different types of projects. After writing their own short stories, students could take or find pictures to fit their story, then add the narration by reading their story. This could be done likewise with personal narratives and pictures of themselves, objects, and settings that are featured in the event they are sharing. Another application would be in writing biographies. This could be autobiographies, the life of a friend or family member, or research on a historical or cultural figure. What you see in this slide is an example from Narrable that was created as the story of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The pictures are set in the order they are to be viewed, and the audio for each is attached to that picture so that viewers are looking where you want them to for the narration you have intended for that photo.

(2 min)

Another use for Narrable is literary analysis. Students could choose imagery or symbols to analyze from a book, story, or poem they have read. When they create their presentation, they would find pictures of what they will be discussing, and then record their thoughts about why those elements are important to what they read. This would be a much more fun way than filling in a worksheet, and it requires higher level thinking because they must also work to find appropriate images to represent their ideas.

(1 min)

Narrable would be a great tool for art classes. In Virginia's Standards of Learning for the visual arts, students must start thinking about the process of creating their artwork. The Art I high school SOL AI.2 states, "The student will identify and use steps of the design process, including brainstorming, preliminary sketching, planning, reflecting, refining, elaborating, and researching, in creative problem solving." Students could upload photos of the stages of their work and narrate their artistic process. They could also create an artist statement or an entire portfolio by adding more artwork rather than focusing on the process of one work.

(1 min)

Pros to Narrable:
It is very easy to make.
It is very engaging for the audience because of the picture and narration combo.
Free for teachers to create student accounts.

Cons:
Pictures must be ready to include ahead of time.
If students create their own accounts, they are limited to 5 projects.

Any questions about Narrable?

Does anyone have any ideas about how you might use Narrable at your school?

(3 min)

Blendspace is a way to catalog parts of a lesson so that all your resources are in one place. A Blendspace presentation can connect to links, documents, pictures, and videos. One advantage to using it is that you don't have to already have all of these things created. It has a search function to find resources online. However, you can also upload your own from your computer, DropBox, or GoogleDrive. When they say, "create lessons in 5 minutes," they are not exaggerating. It is extremely easy to do when you already have the content at your fingertips. You make it more complex by adding notes, deciding on order, and further customizing it to your class.

When creating an account, you can automatically sign in through a Google account. If your students have school Google accounts, this will make it extremely easy to start accounts. Both teacher and student accounts are free. Teachers can create a class, and give students the 4 digit class code to join a class. Students can see your lessons without a code, so they don't have to have accounts, but if you want to create a quiz at the end and track results, they have to be logged in.

(2 min)

This is what a lesson looks like in Blendspace. There are numbered tiles that students can work their way through. You can see the indicators on each one of the tiles on this presentation that tell you whether it is a picture or video. There are other indicators for links and documents.

These lessons can be used for flipped classrooms, so that students can access all the information before class and come ready for that day's class. It could also be used to create webquests, in which students find specific information, but you are giving them the sites, videos, and documents you have approved for them to use. The lessons could be used to answer a guided question. For example, the opinion question at the top of this lesson asks students to evaluate Dali as madman or genius. Subjective questions like this are a great way to get students thinking critically.

(2 min)

You can also have students create their own lessons. Obviously, to make their own lessons, students must have accounts. The Virginia Standards of Learning for English include many media literacy objectives that can be fulfilled using Blendspace. For example, English SOL 10.2 states, "The student will analyze, produce, and examine similarities and differences between visual and verbal media messages." This includes using technology skills and evaluating a variety of sources. When students use Blendspace to create their own lessons, they must find the best sources to include to cover their topic. They could collaborate to evaluate sources and discuss their choices together. They can comment on one another's work easily as well. Students could be split into groups to research a specific topic in any subject, then share their online sources using Blendspace. All students could then use their classmates' lessons to learn about all the topics assigned.

(2 min)

Even if you don't use Blendspace for creating lessons, it can still be useful. For example, if students create projects in some other way, you can display them all together in one Blendspace for easy sharing to a class or school website, or an online newsletter to parents. Any type of project could be shared: photos of visual work such as artwork, photos of students working together on an assignment or presenting work in the classroom or at an assembly or school event, videos of presentations or student-created videos, student-created documents to be published such as stories or poems, links to podcasts that students have created, and more! There are so many ways to use Blendspace for sharing projects! You can make any Blendspace presentation private to anyone who doesn't have the link, so it doesn't have to be public if you choose to only share it with a small group.

(2 min)

Pros to Blendspace:
It is very quick and easy to create.
Lessons can be used in so many different ways: in class or out, teacher or student-directed.
It is a very interactive format for the audience.
Free for teachers to create a class account and add students.

Cons:
Students aren't learning to find information beyond the basic web search, if that is your intention for student creation.

Any questions about Blendspace?

Does anyone have any ideas about how you might use Blendspace at your school?

(3 min)

These are four wonderful online presentation tools that you and the teachers and students at your school will love using because of how polished they will make your presentations.

Does anyone have any further questions about these tools?

(3 min)

If you have any questions, feel free to email me. As another resource, my blog has more technology exploration as well as book reviews with library and classroom ideas. Check it out and leave me a comment to let me know what you think.