Learning about presentation design this week has been interesting, but not particularly relevant to what I do with with my students. I looked in my Keynote folder and found 2 presentations I’ve made to use with the faculty. In both of the presentations I was introducing technology integration to the staff. My first presentation was made a little less than a year ago for the elementary staff to introduce the idea of technology integration and what we were planning. Little did I truly understand or know what would happen this year.(I want to say the elementary staff have taken some big steps and some small steps to integrate technology across the curriculum.)
Technology
The second one was created when the headmaster asked if I could share in 5 minutes or so what the elementary staff has been doing to integrate technology. I know the second one could have been better on many points as I made it in a relatively short time, late at night because I was concerned that my computer might freeze when presenting. (I had some difficulty with my computer when it is upgraded to Lion and I would connect or disconnect from a projector. Those problems have been solved, and I want to thank Ryan.)
Technology in Ele – 2:1:12
Even as I made the 2nd keynote I learned some things. A video clip will play as a clip and not be a still photo. I used screenshots to capture each classroom blog, actually going to the blog would have been more effective, but I was concerned about my computer freezing and having a very limited time. I know that I probably should have fewer bullet points on some of the slides of the first presentation.
I enjoyed watching Don McMillian, Life After Death by PowerPoint. This was made in 2008, he has another similar one from 2010 that is twice as long with a few different points. Garr Reynolds with Zen Presentations seems to be the guru of presentations.
I think the most important points that I have learned are:
- Know your audience, if possible.
- Keep it simple(too many bells and whistles or words can be distracting).
- Keep it memorable.
- Less is often more.
- Create a handout if necessary.
- Your slides should not be your presentation – if all the information is on the slide, why are you talking?
I liked your post as it reminded me some difficulties I sometimes have when learning new things; especially new tech skills. As with most (I hope) people, I don’t have a problem trying out new things that will help me as a teacher. All things we have learned in this course I have really enjoyed and found useful. I do however; get nervous about the inevitable problems that are going to arise as you try out these new things. I know that each time a try a new thing on the computer I am going to need to build in extra time to work out the bugs. That just seems to be the way it is.
A while a go I was working a simple computer animation project with my fourth grade students. When they finished I wanted to post a couple of them on my classroom blog. I saved them as a GIF file and thought I would assemble them in iMovie. I went to the computer teacher and he looked at it and said we convert the files on Photoshop so it would work. We tried that and for some reason it didn’t. Back to the drawing board.
I then decided to just try and upload them to the blog. Everything went well, but they would not play. So then we figured out that I had to load the examples on to Flickr or Photobucket so I could get the HTML code. Once I got the HTML code, I could then cut and paste it into the HTML area of my post. Once this was done it loaded quickly and everything works just fine.
I have learned that doing anything new needs me to have an open mind, some extra time to handle the difficulties that may arise, and a kind and helpful tech colleague.
Here is the link to the animations.
http://asij-es-art.blogspot.com/2012/02/grade-4-movement-animations.html
The learning keeps on going. I noticed after I posted this, that the one Keynote looked much better than the other. Not even sure what I did! I didn’t have my tech colleagues around since we are on winter break. One of those things I’ll have to work on.
I enjoyed the animations on your blog. Thanks for sharing the link. I need to work on editing the readers’ theater plays my students did on Friday so we can show them tomorrow!
Hi Jean,
You have some nice solid points in this post. In retrospect it’s interesting to read as it appears everyone goes through similar cycles and processes. You have related some of the aspects to the readings. Can you see yourself progressing? What will be your next step or challenge? Me, I try not to use any templates now and utilise negative space more while making all my pics fill the page. Good luck!
Frank,
I am still learning and did a keynote presentation after these. One of our tech guys looked at it and made some suggestions. I made it much simpler with mostly photos that I then talked about and had a handout for the parents. I’m not sure if I’m ready to try it without a template but as I do more publishing of iMovie clips, etc I am gaining confidence and who knows the next step may be a keynote without the template. I’m not sure exactly what you mean “utilise negative space more.”