Spruce up your Presentations

I am thinking most teachers can relate to this.

You have some notes to give, but you just don't want to use "PowerPoint" again.

OR, perhaps you have an assignment where you want the students to present some information, but you would like to try something new?

Well, for the sake of variety, perhaps you could use a different presentation application?

There are a number of online resources, out there.  Some of them incorporate video, some of them are for "booklets" or "magazines", some of them are for animation or comic strips.

The point is, there is a lot of different resources available, and by "mixing up" the variety of your presentations and/or assignments you can keep things a bit more fresh.

I am going to post a list of them below.

1.  Google Slides "Google Drive" version of PowerPoint.
2. Prezi - Interactive slide show
3. Glogster - Poster Creator
4. Go Animate - online animation resource
5. Info.gram - creates graphics and Charts
6. Issuu - creates online documents "magazines"
7. Knovio - online presentations, with audio or video embedded?
8. Metta.io - online presentations with Video... compatible with Google Drive
9. SlideRocket - online presentations
10. StoryJumper - create online Story Books
11. SimpleBooklet - create online "Booklets"
12. Storybird - create, read, and print Art inspired stories.
13. StripCreator create and share comic strips
14. ToonDo - create your own comic strips and comic books
15. VoiceThread - create and share images with images, audio, and video
16. Zentation - Presentation tool that brings together slides and video.

Note:  This is certainly not an "all-inclusive" list.  There are always new websites, and new ideas being implemented.  This is a just a list I had on hand.

ALSO:  Most of the sites are free, or have a free option.  It is possible that some of them are NOT free and that there is a charge for their service.

I haven't used them all, but I have had students who have used many of the sites discussed here for various products, and I have been very pleased when getting the results.

2014 TIE Conference resources

A few weeks ago, Mr. Farnham and I attended the 2014 TIE Conference in Sioux Falls.

It was a very informative conference, and I learned a number of different things.

I thought the Blog would be a good place to link some of the resources.

First off, here is the LINK to all the participants presentations.  If you click along the top "tabs" of the Symbaloo...you see there are all the sessions listed, Sunday's in depth sessions, Mondays, and Tuesdays.

Some presentations you may have interest in:

40 Web Tools for 21st Century Skills - it's a lot, but they are pretty good.  (Note:  Link takes to webpage...PowerPoint is downloaded from there).

Symbaloo (is kinda neat) I haven't used it, but it looks interesting.

Top 10 Classroom Tools - This has some neat things in it.

Chrome Apps - this was a good one, I attended this presentation

Hope you can find something interesting and exciting that you can use in your classroom!

Tuesday Teacher Tips: Websites and return of the podcasts!

In December, Mr. Erickson, Mrs. Neill, and I, were able to attend a workshop in Sioux Falls hosted by TIE which went over a number of devices and mobile apps that can be used on them.

While there...one of the instructors gave us a link to a google doc page where she had listed over 200 websites (and/or apps) that can be used on mobile devices.

The Link to that spreadsheet is HERE.  My advice would be to look through the list when you are thinking of trying to do something new.  There are many sites on there...some I have discussed here before, and many others that I haven't even heard of.

Secondly, I plan to begin recording some more podcasts in the coming weeks.  The main reason that I stopped, is that the phone that I was using to record the interviews had died (it would no longer charge), and I had a replacement phone that did not have a voice recording option on it.  I recently acquired a different phone that has a voice recorder...so we can pick up where we left off.

So, if you know someone with a coming event, or you have a team or organization that you would like to discuss on the podcast, please let me know.  They are very simple to do, and it does not take a large amount of time.

If you want to listen to any of the previous episodes from this past fall, they are located on the "Podcast Central" page.

Thanks for reading, and check out that spreadsheet...there are alot of good resources on there!

New Technology Resoure: Free Technology for Teachers Blog

I'm here at TIE and listening to speaker, Richard Byrne.

He runs a very excellent blog for educators.

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

Feel free to check  it out!  Lots of good stuff on there.

Documentary Films!

This week... a link to a page that has a list of a number of free Documentaries for streaming.

http://www.filmsforaction.org/walloffilms/

Films on all kinds of topics...the financial crisis, the environment, what we eat... all kinds of things are on there.

The "Wall of Films" site has over 400 documentaries to choose from.

Note:  I would "preview" each film before I decided to show it, or a snippet of it in the classroom... as they are documentaries, and they aren't "edited" for school use.

I've seen a couple of these films, both Food Inc, and Food Matters, and they were both very interesting.

Another note:  As a documentary.... many times the film makers are setting out to "prove a point" and they are politically biased one way or another  (not necessarily on party lines...but more on "issues").  Please keep this in mind as you "preview" each film.... you don't want to be accused of spreading propaganda (one way or another).

Just another resource for you, hope school is going well.