This week
was another gold mine of information for technology in the classroom. The focus
for the fourth week was presentation programs for teaching and learning. I of
course am familiar with presentation programs, but am learning through the
technology explorations that there are several new ones that should definitely
be on my radar!
This week’s
reading did an excellent job at providing information on how PowerPoint
presentations can be used in the classroom. As a not yet teaching student, it
is so great to read all the ways that this technology can be used in the
classroom. Many of the things that were provided in this lesson as ideas for
the classroom were things that I had never thought of. I am so grateful that I
have this list of activities for my students to use with PowerPoint!
With this
newfound information on PowerPoint presentations, I created my own presentation
that I would consider presenting to my future classroom. I am not yet teaching,
so I envisioned presenting my PowerPoint to fifth graders in a Social Studies
classroom. I pretended that we were learning of different cultures of the world
and chose to do my presentation over the French life style. I think that it is
very important for students to recognize that there are other cultures besides
our own of American. I also want them to discover how intriguing and
interesting it can be to learn about other cultures other than our own! Once I
finished creating my presentation, I presented it to my neighbor, an elementary
age student who just completed the fifth grade (school is already out here). I
am most proud of how my presentation reflected the French culture and
lifestyle. It is often surprising for students to see how different people can
live as opposed to our own lifestyles. We often eat in small increments of
time, on the go and in a hurry. It is so neat to see students’ reactions to
learn that French people often take hours to eat one meal! I am most proud of
how interesting my neighbor, Macy, found the presentation! If I could create
the presentation differently, I might take additional time to implement more
effects – not sound, but more of a revealing factor so that all the information
does not appear at once. I found that Macy was trying to read the information
before I had gotten to it. However, Macy seemed to really enjoy the
presentation. She was inquisitive about the French culture, and that made me
feel like she really enjoyed the presentation and found it interesting. This
experience was a great learning opportunity for me, especially since this is
the first time that I have presented a presentation to elementary-aged
students.
TECHNOLOGY EXPLORATIONS
This week
entailed many technology explorations, but was extremely worthwhile. I always
look forward to these each week for the pure value of wonderful resources that
they provide.
The first
technology exploration assigned for this week involved researching Comic Life
and iSpeech. Although comics do not personally intrigue me, I know that many
students are. I loved discovering this resource because I am intrigued by visuals! Comic Life offers a wonderful way for
students to write and read in a fun way that truly interests them. Like many
others that I have discovered in this course, this is going on my list for use
in my future classroom!
iSpeech was
another wonderful find for my list! We explored a few resources last week that
were similar to this one, but iSpeech blew them out of the water for me! The
fact that you can select different voices, including celebrity inspired ones is
just way too neat! I definitely think that this resource will catch students’
attention and greatly increase their engagement.
The second
technology exploration was again an informational gold mine! Voicethread is a
resource that allows users to create recorded presentations while still
allowing viewers to make comments, even though they are not watching it live. I
think that this is an awesome idea that creates so many opportunities for the
classroom. Whether a student is out for a day, or two months, this resource can
be used to catch them up on their classes. I also think that this could be a
great idea if the teacher knows that they are going to be absent. This would
eliminate the wasted time of busy work and supervision from a substitute. Instead,
students can spend their class time viewing a pre-recorded Voicethread
presentation and continue learning the content. Genius!! The Voicethread Wiki
is also a wonderful addition to this resource. It has many ideas and lessons for teachers to use when creating
Voicethread presentations. It also has a plethora of ideas for teachers to
assign students projects that use
this resource. I cannot say enough great things about this resource!
The third
technology exploration for this week led to Storybird and Scibblar. I
absolutely love Storybird. I had
never heard of it before, but since discovering it, I cannot stop thinking of
ways to use it! Storybird allows users to create stories with amazing
pre-loaded art. It involves students in the process of writing as well as
reading. Scribblar is also a wonderful resource that incorporates all users in
a brainstorm activity. I think that it is so neat that technology has
progressed in such a way that an entire classroom can participate in a digital
brainstorming activity. I love how technology continues to grow!
The fourth
and final technology exploration introduced us to Xtranormal and
Virtualmanipulatives. Xtranormal seems like an interesting resource that is
used to make movies. This could be a great assignment for those students who
need to express themselves creatively and see a result at the end of it. This
is an awesome way to accomplish those! Virtualmanipulatives is a great resource
for teachers and I, again, am so happy that I discovered this resource. There
are so many times where we have all tried to illustrate something and
completely failed. This solves this problem in important areas such as math
education. This has every type of math resource visual imaginable. It is also a
great way to incorporate technology into the classroom as well as possibly have
student involvement. I am so grateful that this resource was included in this
week’s lesson.
As usual,
all of this week’s technology explorations were greatly informational and
remarkable. There are so many ways to use these in the classroom!
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