Another Way to Use PPT

In response to Mark and Christine - using PowerPoint in a different way.

This is so true guys. And Mark - you mentioned that boys love this type of writing - and so do girls. And better yet, they all love READING this type of writing. Some call it cartoons, some call it graphic stories, others refer to it as comics. Whatever you call it - the kids love it, and it's a great way to get them to read. If you've ever heard of the "Bone" books by Jeff Smith, you'll know how popular this type of writing/reading is! During any given week, at leave five of my students will sign out a Bone book from the library. Excellent!

Assignment 5 - Rationale

Assignment 5 – Presentation Software
PowerPoint Presentation – Julia Borrelli
O’Siem – by Susan Aglukark

Rationale:

Every month at the Catholic school where I teach, we have a “Community Celebration” – a school-wide assembly, honouring students who have volunteered, helped out, or stood out in some way over the month. Each month it is the responsibility of one class to ‘direct’ this assembly – putting together all the thank you announcements and awards of recognition. For the month of March, it is my turn (along with my class) to organize the Community Assembly. Since it will take place during Race Relations week in Sioux Lookout, I thought it would be appropriate to present a slideshow to the entire school that represents anti-racism, togetherness, and cultural diversity.

The following PowerPoint presentation uses a song and lyrics by Susan Aglukark – a Canadian singer/song writer who infuses her music with Aboriginal culture and the Iniktitut language. The phrase “O’Siem” is a shout for joy in Inuktitut, and it’s a song that attempts to break down the barriers felt by many Native people. This presentation is something that I will show to the entire school during our Race Relations week in March; a week where we have different activities that will help break down the walls of racism and bring awareness to students and community members. Some activities that take place during Race Relations week at our school include bannock baking, Pow Wows, Smudge Ceremonies, and bringing Elders in from the community to talk about their experiences with Residential schools and the prejudices they feel.

Information about the Artist and Song:

“(Susan) Aglukark's lyrics have included personal stories and social commentary on issues such as child abuse, alcoholism and suicide that have plagued many First Nations communities. Her album This Child combined contemporary melodies, traditional Inuk chants, modern lyrics and Inuit culture and folklore. The song "O Siem" described some of the racism and prejudice in her community, and "Shamaya" combined folklore and personal observations to describe a traditional Inuit hunt. "Hina Na Ho" drew a striking analogy between the harsh Arctic winter and the challenges experienced by many people in northern Canada.”

(http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0003989)

Notes about the PowerPoint Presentation:

¤ At the time of submission, the song “O’Siem” plays through the entire slide show
¤ The slide transitions match with the lyrics (text) on each slide
¤ I am really hoping this works – and that you see what I see!

More on Spec. Ed.

In response to David...Isn't it difficult/frustrating to know where your students are at and to try to help them when they are often being withdrawn and 'dealt with' in the spec. ed. department only? I can only imagine how you feel about your students trying to make it in highschool. I'm sure you're doing a great job at preparing them for what's coming - huge changes ahead!

Plethora of PowerPoint

Wow, Shane - this definitely is a HUGE amount of slideshows to view. This site gave me some great ideas for the presentation assignment coming up. It's definitely a website that gives great examples of the many things PowerPoint can do! Thanks for sharing this, I added it to my favourites so I can show my class powerpoint presentations when they relate to what we are doing in class. Thank yoU!

Ebooks...

David, this website looks like a great place where people can learn about the benefits to using Ebooks. Going through the site and your summative posting, it is easy to see that every teacher can use ebooks within their classrooms and expect great results. I'm not sure how things are in your school, but in my school, the special education programming takes place pretty well completely within the spec. ed. department. Meaning that the students are often removed from the classroom in order to have their special ed. programming take place. So I think it's easy for teachers to forget how easy it can be to provide accommodated or moderated programming for students who are struggling - especially if the onus has been taken off them in the past. But this site makes things very clear as to what we can do with ebooks, and why they are important for students who learn differently. Thanks for the share!

Benetton - Flipbook

In response to Keethai's discovery of Benetoon's "Flipbook" website.

Keethai - I have never heard of this website, and I think this has very much to do with our current topic. It seems like a great place for students to be able to express themselves through creative images and in a sense, presentations. From what I can see, children are able to create their own drawings and pictures and then use those to establish their own flipbook - which is most definitely a visual presentation. The only thing that would make it even better is if students could import sound bites. From what I could tell, this is something that hasn't been established on the site yet - but I could be wrong. I just think adding sound would make things even more creative. And you're right, Keethai, this does match completely with the curriculum expectations and even goes along with much of the literacy curriculum as well.

Inspiration

This is a posting I created in response to Patricia's find about Inspiration presentation software.

Patricia - thanks for letting us know about another presentation software. To be quite honest, I know no other presentation software programs other than Microsoft PowerPoint or MovieMaker, so to have another one brought to my attention is a great thing. I especially enjoy how the link discusses the different types of presentations you could create using Inspiration. It actually takes you through step-by-step, the different types of presentations, and the reasons and different contexts for which to use each one. I think this link is very helpful for people who want to broaden their horizons and move beyond the PowerPoint mind frame. Great find - thanks!

List of Slideshows

This is in response to Vanessa's great find: http://www.graves.k12.ky.us/powerpoints/elementary/ - Using PowerPoint Presentations in the Pr/Jr Classroom.

Vanessa - this is quite the list. It's too bad that the creators of the site didn't sort through the presentations and categorize them into grades or divisions at least. I am looking through some of them now, thinking of how great it would have been to have access to these during some of my past units (Ecosystems, Food Chains, anything having to do with Kindergarten, etc.). And although this seems to be American (or at least there are some US-related slideshows), there are still some very relevant topics that I'm sure relate to our Ontario curriculum. I can't wait to sit down and take the time to go through these to see what will apply to me. In fact, a smart thing to do would be to put this on my "Favourites" list so I can refer back to it in the future. Great find, thanks for sharing!

What Not To Do...

Lately, all the research I have been coming across in terms of Powerpoint presentations have said the same thing; if you're going to use this software, refrain from using bulleted points in your slides. Peter has even said the same thing.

The thing that I find to be very funny is that I sat through four years of university, and in each year and almost every subject (except Peter's class, of course!) there were PowerPoint slideshows that featured bulleted points slide after slide. The prof would (I guess?) try to make things seem more interesting by using fancy transitions with their words popping on the screen (i.e. the bullets would appear letter by letter with a very annoying typing sound), but they weren't fooling anyone.

It's intersting to think that everyone is telling us what NOT to do with a powerpoint slideshow, and all throughout university, the profs (but not Peter!) were doing just that. Tisk Tisk...

Another Negative Opinion

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0002PP&topic_id=1

This is a link entitled "Lowsy PowerPoint presentations: the Fault of PP users?". Another interesting article to read - presenting lots of different perspectives. It's kind of interesting to see the different points of view on the subject - and lately, I have been finding more and more negative opinions. Take a look.

Powerpoint and Rocket Science

http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001yB&topic_id=1

This is the link about using powerpoint and rocket science. It's a good read...definitely check it out!

Powerpoint - One Author's Idea

http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_pp

Apparently there are quite a few resources that outline the dos and don'ts of powerpoint and slideware presentations in general. If you follow the link above, you'll see one author's opinion as stated in his essay entitled "PowerPoint Does Rocket Science--and Better Techniques for Technical Reports".

Basically the site explains how we have been using visual presentations for many years, and now with the invention of different slideshow software, they are nearly everywhere. This author claims that "slideware often reduces the analytical quality of presentations. In particular, the popular PowerPoint templates (ready-made designs) usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis". Hmm...makes you wonder about teachers using this in their classrooms on a regular basis, doesn't it?

A Couple Professors' Opinions

http://lsi.typepad.com/lsi/2007/01/rethinking_powe.html

This is a link I came across when researching the use of Powerpoint in the classroom. It begins with a Law School professor stating all the negative aspects of Powerpoint, saying MindManager (made by Mindjet) is better. Although I find some of his opinions valid, I also don't necessarily think he knows everything there is to know about Powerpoint, because then he wouldn't be saying things like 'it flattens my presentations', etc. When we all know that there are certain things we can do to make sure our presentations on PowerPoint are not 'flat'.

It is interesting to read the rest of the comments (it is posted in a forum format). Many of the people who respond to him are either fellow Law Professors or students of law, giving their opinions. Check it out - it is very interesting!

Help, Peter!

Peter, I am sort of concerned with the last few posts you've given us about hints for our powerpoint presentation project. You keep using terms like 'bells and whistles' and 'fancy'...and I don't feel very confident! Do you literally just want us to put together a presentation showcasing all that the software can do (or at least what I think it can do?)...and leave the content behind?

Powerpoint and Shared Reading

In response to Patricia, who posted on using powerpoint presentations as big books in the classroom...

Patricia, I am not really sure what you are referring to when you say a 'digital imager'. Maybe I have not gone through all the posts yet, and will find it soon:). But I do like what you're saying about using powerpoint to create a big book for the classroom. I also don't necessarily think you need the audio aspect of it. Instead, you could use it as a shared reading lesson instead. This seems like a good idea to me, and I will research more!

Powerpoint in the Classroom

In response to Christine's two posted links for powerpoint and ESL students...

Christine, unfortunately your first link didn't work for me, but the second one you gave regarding ESL Lessons using Powerpoint seems really great. I especially like the idea that they have so many different grammatical lessons, as well as punctuation. To me, this could be used for a lot of different students - not just ESL students. In particular, I am thinking of two or three different students in my class who are IEPed for language. One in particular is working at an early grade one level (and he's in grade four) so these types of presentations would be especially helpful to him. I also like these because the teacher or EA can use them one-on-one with the student, or the teacher can do whole class instruction using the LCD projector. Great!

Digital Imagery in the Classroom

In researching the use of digital imagery in the classroom, it quickly became very apparent that there are endless amounts of activities and opportunities that use such technology within the learning environment. Although many websites outline things that the teacher can do with digital photography, there are also many opportunities for the students themselves to have hands-on experience with this. I am a strong believer in experiential learning, and many children learn better by doing. So, what better way to teach any subject, than with first hand experience using a digital camera? The following are a few ways that digital imagery can be used within regular and special needs classrooms.
One application of using digital photography in the classroom is within the Health and Physical Education strand. In grade five, one of the specific expectations for physical fitness is to be able to describe the components of physical fitness and relate each component to an appropriate physical activity. These categories include cardiorespiratory, muscle endurance, muscle strength, and flexibility. The teacher would divide the class up into four different groups, and have them come up with different activities they could do for each type of physical fitness. For example, one group would be the ‘flexibility’ group, and it would be their task to come up with 3-5 appropriate exercises or activities we should do daily that fall into that group.
Once every group has had a chance to establish their activities and practice, the teacher will give them a digital camera and they are to take still photos as well as video footage of what each activity looks like as the students perform them. Once every group has taken their photos, they can print them out and make captions for them. The students must then put these photographs on display in the school hallway in a pyramid format, showing the entire school which physical activity should be done the most to the least, and what each one could look like. At the end you will have a photo collage, created completely by the students, of the different physical activities you should do daily, as well as captions explaining each one.
Other classes can be invited to join the “Physical Fitness Photo Wall” by adding their own photographs of other physical activities you could do. As an extension of this, the photographs that the students take can then be added to the school’s website for parents and other community members to see. The teacher can also post the video footage online so that parents and other students can click on it to see what the exercises will look like from start to finish. This assignment would not only link to the Health and Physical Education curriculum, but it would also integrate well with the Human Body science curriculum, as well as the Visual Arts strand.
A second idea that incorporates digital imagery in the special needs classroom includes having a student study local landmarks. In the grade five social studies curriculum, Canadian Landmarks is a subject that is taught. Since the concept of Canadian landmarks may be overwhelming or intimidating for a student with special needs, the teacher can accommodate to his/her needs by making it local landmarks. It is the student’s task to drive (or walk if it is a smaller town) around the city with an adult helper, and take pictures of different places the student considers to be local landmarks. Such places may include his neighbourhood grocery store, the town hall, the local beach, and the school. The places the student considers to be local landmarks may be special to the student, or they can be places the student can relate to. For example, he may take a picture of the building where his dad works. If possible, the student with special needs is encouraged to be the one who takes the photos, as this will allow him to have ownership in his work. The student may need a reminder of what a ‘landmark’ is, and the definition should be established prior to the photo-taking extravaganza. While taking these photos, the student should also try to focus on different photo techniques and use different camera angles, etc. This of course can be incorporated into the arts curriculum.
After the photos are taken, it is the student’s task to arrange them in a presentation of some sort. If the student is able to manipulate a presentation software program such as Microsoft PowerPoint, then he can be asked to make a slide show with the digital images he took, with captions under each photo. If the student is working at a lower primary level, have him print the photos out, and arrange them on a presentation board, along with captions for each. As an extension of this task, the teacher can ask the student to create a large to-scale map of the hometown. On that map he is to place the pictures where they belong respectively. This will encourage the student to develop his mapping skills. Furthermore, if the map were created on grid paper, he could also be asked to give the coordinates of each location, which would concur with mathematics curriculum.
Once the entire project is finished, the teacher may have the student present his project orally in front of the class. If he created his presentation on PowerPoint, he could also record himself reading the information, and then play the slideshow in front of the class using the LCD projector.
The following is another example of a lesson that incorporates digital photography in the primary grades. At the beginning of the year, the teacher will explain to the class that each child is to choose a living thing outdoors that is special to them. This can be a tree, a flower, a pond, etc. In the fall, the students will go on a fall walk and (with help from the teacher, parent volunteers, or EAs) each student will take a photograph of their special item using a digital camera. The students will then print their photos out on coloured paper twice. With one set of photos they will create a wall or bulletin board with all of their pictures. The pictures can be labeled with the student’s name, as well as why that item is special to them. With the second set of photos, they will create their very own photo journal. This could be done using a simple notebook that has half the page blank for a picture and the other half with lines. If it is a more advanced class, the photo journal can be created online using a free photo journal website, or even in a folder on the computer that belongs to that one student.
This will be an ongoing task throughout the year, because as each new season presents itself, the students will venture outside and take a photograph of that same item. As the year progresses they will continue to go outside and take photos of their special item. Every time they do, they will add to their photo journals, and write a reflection each time a new picture is taken. This is a good way for students to have first-hand learning of the seasons, or life cycles in the environment. Throughout the year the students will begin to notice changes in the environment and to their special item in particular. They will be able to state their findings, as well as reflect and ask questions as to why certain things happened. What’s great about this assignment is the fact that each child should be encouraged to choose his own item, something that is unique and different from everyone else’s. This way, each student has ownership of his own special item, and that item can become “theirs”.
Young students will look forward to many things in this task; they will look forward to the next season or anytime their item changes, and they will look forward to using and manipulating a digital camera, since many of their parents may not let them use theirs at home. This is also a great literacy lesson because it encourages students to make predictions and write using descriptive language. This is a very well-rounded lesson that both the teacher and students will benefit from greatly.
As stated above, there are so many things students can do with digital imagery inside and outside of the classroom. It was very difficult to choose just three lessons, as there are so many that exist. However, I chose these three for a couple different reasons. First of all, each lesson I discussed had the student as the hands-on learner; the one manipulating the digital camera and other technologies. I also chose these lessons because each of them had so many cross-curricular integrations and extensions, which is always something teachers are looking for. Lastly, I included them because they show a range of different ages and abilities, from the junior grades, to students with special needs, right down to the primary grades.
It is very apparent that digital imagery is a concept that can be used in any classroom, and at any age or grade. It is something that is so easily at our finger tips that we would be doing ourselves and our students a disservice if we didn’t allow them to explore with digital cameras.

"Teacher to Teacher"

In response to David's find: http://www.brunswick.k12.me.us/lon/lonlinks/digicam/teacher/home.html

This looks like a really good site, David. Although Peter would like us to focus moreso on the students having the camera, it's still a great site that gives tips and ideas to teachers like who are trying to do various things with digital cameras in their classrooms. I especially like the idea the first grade teacher had where she took pictures around the classroom and them put them into KidPix where the kids would have to draw the shapes that they saw. This is a great activity as it not only introduces shapes in the environment, it also touches upon perspective taking and seeing things that may not be blatent or obvious. I'll be sure to use some of these ideas when I'm looking to incorporate digital imagery in my classroom. Great find, David!

Google Earth?

Response to Vanessa's Google Earth posting...

Vanessa - I've heard so much about Google Earth but have never ventured onto the site. Now that I've read your submission, I am on it as we speak and it is downloading! Can't wait to see what opportunities this will present. Thanks for the tip!

Differentiated Instruction and the Auditory Learner

Response to Dave's differentiated instruction posting in regards to using audio technology software programs such as Kurzweil and Dragon Naturally Speaking.

I think you are so right, David. You definitely touched upon some poignant issues. I have a student in my class who uses both those software programs many times throughout the week and sometimes daily. The one thing that I have trouble with though is the fact that other students still say "why does HE get to use that and we don`t". On one hand I explain that we all learn differently and these types of software will help the student to perform and reach his highest potential. On the other hand, I hear what the other kids are saying and wish that we did have access to this software for the whole class. Although I understand that only a few students may need this type of software assistance, that`s not to say that other students wouldn`t benefit from using it as well. I guess it just comes down to the availability of technology in your school...which is frustrating to some!