Hello all! This week for the we were asked to look at a couple more tools for possible use in the classrooms to enhance the learning experience for students. They were PowerPoint, Prezi, and Glogster. Let's have a look at the features they offer and also at the positives as well as the shortcomings of each, as well.
PowerPoint
Everyone knows PowerPoint, even if you haven't played around with it or utilised it yourself. It's a pretty handy little program, which of course is proven by its widespread use and popularity in classrooms, business meetings, and pretty much everywhere a screen and a speaker is present.
PowerPoint is a program used mainly for linear presentations in the form of a slide show. More often than not, that's it, although many nice little features can be added to your slideshow to make it more attractive and fancy. But what not as many people take advantage of is the more interactive capabilities of PowerPoint. By embedding audio, video and hyperlinks, a monotonous substitute for a whiteboard note-taking session can be a lot more engaging for teachers and learners alike. In addition, embedding is possible with PowerPoint Online.
Mine is by no means sleek or that interesting. But by creating a little virtual room, objects can be placed and hyperlinked to other slides to create a fun little presentation. This could be done by both students and teachers. I have made a very simple point and click vocabulary game for beginners in German with a few words to learn. I didn't do it here, but audio could also be added to aid in pronunciation if desired. Unfortunately I had some online OneDrive issues, so I cannot embed my presentation here.
PowerPoint PMI:
The Positives
- Easy to use
- Handy for presentations
- Can embed multimedia to make it more interactive
- Can be accessed and used offline
The Minuses
- Can be a boring, linear affair
- Isn't usually used for much else other than a substitute for a whiteboard
Interesting
- With PowerPoint Online you can embed in blogs, sites and wikis
- Can be a more interactive experience than I previously thought!
Glogster
I had heard the name Glogster before but I had really no idea what this was until a few weeks ago. I immediately was able to see the plus points this program could lend to the world of education. It is a versatile tool that can be incorporated into any curriculum and can stretch the imagination of teachers and students. Multimedia capabilities make Glogster a fun program. Images, video, audio, links and all can be incorporated into this collage style of presentation. Students would enjoy collaborating together and this is something they could do at home as well, in a flipped classroom setting.
I could imagine having students in a German class creating an interactive tour through Germany, with images and links to videos, maps and other interesting topics and exploring the history- much like this one here which I found online, a virtual field trip of sorts. (The embed link path wasn't working, so I apologize for the archaic link to the glog below.)
Glog about Germany
Due to the fact that you now have to pay to use Glogster (well, there is a 7 day free trial), I opted not to make one myself or sign up just yet. But I enjoyed looking around the web and playing with some interesting glogs. So let's do a PMI for this as well.
The Positives
- Easy to use, very engaging
- Interactive (multimedia capabilities)
- Adaptable to any subject
- Good for collaborative learning
- Can easily be done at home for homework
- Ease of use might encourage simple drag and drop
- Glogs can quickly become too "busy" and messy (overlapping features), therefore making it difficult to navigate
- One must sign up and pay for an account
- Media and video is openly accessible, possible copyright and ownership issues
Prezi
When one thinks of PowerPoint, one thinks of a more linear approach to presenting material. With Prezi, that thought gets turned around, zoomed in and out, flipped around, and pans all around. And that is exactly how you can present with this program. I found it very fun to play around with after watching a few pre-made presentations.
As with the other two tools previously discussed this week, Prezi has a multimedia functionality that makes it engaging and interesting, appealing to all the senses. Video, imagery, and audio can be sleekly designed into your presentation. The standout feature though that separates this program from PowerPoint (which is slightly more user-friendly) is its NON-linear approach and zoom function. Sure you can go in order throughout the canvas, but it can jump around. Individual attention can be given to certain concepts, looking at them in greater detail, presenting them in whichever form the teacher or student feels best suited, be it an image, video clip or audio sample. Although the zoom is an interesting feature, I felt that too much of it was a bit disorientating, and more of a gimmick, a glorified PowerPoint slide transition, if you will.
As for classroom implementation, I think it's obviously suited. It can be made more interesting than your average PowerPoint presentation and like PowerPoint, it could be a wonderful and engaging tool for collaborative learning, teacher AND student presentations, book reports. And with its ability to be embedded into blogs and sites, students could do presentations as homework (provided they have a good internet connection at home).
I made a rather simple Prezi this time around, but I will definitely be looking into how to make it a lot more interesting when I have more time! This Prezintation is describing the Water Cycle in German, which of course could be used in a German class when nature or scientific vocabulary and topics are being discussed.
Prezi in SAMR
Substitution - A usable substitute for a linear whiteboard presentation/lecture.
Augmentation - The multi-focal zoom effects and transitions add new features to the normal presentation, as well as the incorporation of images, audio, and video.
Modification- Students can create presentations or book reports with audio narration and interactive activities
Redefinition- Using online Cloud base, share presentation worldwide and imbed hyperlinks to a wide range of media such as YouTube, Soundcloud, or other media tool.
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