CEDO530 - Post #3 - Picture Superiority Effect

In the book Presentation Zen, I really liked the chapter on Design and Techniques. The image examples on pp. 133-152 were fantastic! It really hit home with me how less is more. I would have to say that 99% of presentations that I have viewed are not good. Too many words, too many graphics, just plain out too busy looking. The book gave me great ideas on what types of graphs are visually attractive and yet get the point across. I also like how many of the examples showed images taking up the entire slide and putting only short phrases over the image...again very powerful.

CEDO530 - Post #2 - In What Ways Can I Use Digital Storytelling in What I Do?

In Digitales, a story idea that was suggested is to "create the story of the impact of a grant on the students". I really like this idea. Throughout the last few years, our district has been part of a consortium with 6 other districts where we write for large grants that focus on technology integration in the classroom. Since participating, our district has received over $8,000 in technology purchases that we have used to assist us in incorporating 21st century skills into our classrooms. Every few months, I have to report to the school board on technology updates throughout the district. Instead of just giving a report on what we've been doing, wouldn't it be cool to create a short digi-story showing the board members how teachers/students are using the technology in their classrooms? Most board members never make it into the classroom and several aren't aware of new educational technologies. I think they'd appreciate a visual story rather than my boring report.

CEDO530 - Post #1 - What do I hope to learn?

I hope that I will learn to break the habit of using powerpoint simply because it is easy to use and is the most common media presentation software available in schools. I have to admit, watching powerpoint presentations is mind-numbing. Almost all of the teachers in our district use powerpoint for their's and their students' presentations. Before I became a teacher, I worked in the private sector and have had to endure 50+ slide presentations during staff meetings, workshops, etc. I had a hard time staying focused during many of those presentations, and now it troubles me to see so many of our students being taught that powerpoint is the only presentation software available. I loved the 2 articles we read for class, especially "Powerpoint is Evil". I agree completely with these articles. However, I am a typical teacher with very little time to learn a new "tricks". Powerpoint is the old standby when there is no time to learn new ways for presentations. So, in short, I'm hoping to learn new presentation techniques in this class so that I can put powerpoint in the past.