Excited But A Bit Confused...

I have really enjoyed the information that is coming from Presentation Zen.  Both the video clips and chapters have had some great concepts for making the best presentations that leave a mark.  My husband is a guidance counselor at a middle/high school and came home one night this week and during our nightly, "What happened at your school today…" conversation, he told me how his team was going to be giving presentations to the district administrators about what sort of programs they run and set up and what services they provide.  I started to share some of the information that we have been learning about in class and how it might be a stronger way to make an impact on the people who, in the end, will have a huge hand in deciding if their work is provides enough value to keep them around.  The main points that I shared with him were to reduce the amount of text on their slides so that the audience members listened to them and didn't get stuck reading the slides instead (one of the main points that Garr has been bringing up).

However, as much as I can see this being a really helpful thing for him to apply in his presentations, I am having a hard time seeing how to apply it to the types of "presentations" that I use in my room.  When I am making a flipchart to present and practice information, I am thinking about making it as interactive as possible (if that is applicable) and to get straight to the point.  It will be an interesting process going through some of my flipcharts to see how to apply some of the things we are learning, but also know that some of them will just have to stay as they are.

Using Digital Story Telling

Starting this school year, our K4 through 2nd grade classrooms started using a new reading curriculum.  It is a very well thought out curriculum with some wonderful components to teaching the skills and concepts to be great readers…however, it only goes through 2nd grade.  So over the summer, my third grade team met to revamp our reading curriculum, from scratch.  We looked at all the resources we have gathered and used over the years and looked at the new Common Core to see what materials best fit these areas and standards that we need to be teaching.  We have found this process to be very exciting because we, ourselves, have found a new excitement and enjoyment out of teach reading again because it is fun, appropriate concepts, however, frustrated because of the lack of assessments that are here, ready to use.  We have spent a lot of time thinking about what we want to see from our students and discussing the fact that it isn't reasonable to expect that we create a brand, spanking new (traditional) assessment for each book/story/topic/skill, so threw around the idea of project based assessments.  This way, the framework can be applied to many areas of study, not just reading, and can allow students to show what they know in ways that they feel more comfortable doing and allow them to be more creative and individual.  Using digital story telling will be a great way to assess their knowledge and understanding in so many areas that we will have to sit down and look at the best places to use it.

Digital Storytelling

Until this class, I didn't really think of my material as "presentations," when that is exactly what it is.  I know that I am sharing and "presenting" information to my students, but I also have always attached the word "presentation" to the business or professional world.  Thinking about it in my classroom really made me see my materials through a different eye.

The materials that we had to read and look at this week really hit home in so many ways.  I don't think any of us could read this and not connect it to at least one situation in our life when we have experienced a poorly delivered presentation.  Hopefully, after this course is over, we all steer clear of presenting the evil "slideument."

There was a mix of opinion about how to use presentation software to share information, and even an opinion that it shouldn't be used at all.  Each article brings out interesting and valid points about why presentations should simplify their material, why presentations have simplified material too much, and even why presentation software should be banned all together.  I can't see our world moving towards the elimination of presentation software, but hopefully towards using it more effectively.