Transforming+Student+Presentations

=Transforming Student Presentations=

Ken Rodoff
Wiki located at http://isteatncte.wikispaces.com/.
 * I'm sure you agree that student prestentations, especially when using PowerPoint can be extremely ineffective and boring.
 * The presenter is a technology specialist at a high school and has worked with the staff to help develop some guidelines to help student presentations become more engaging.
 * First of all, never assign PowerPoints, assign Presentations. There are lots of tools out there students can use to assist with presentations.
 * Students must be able to answer the following question: "When presenting this, what is the value added for the audience?" Any visual aid must be something more than what could be said orally. It should add value to the presentation. Remember that presentation aids are NOT for the presenter, they're for the audience. When you go to present, it's never about you!
 * Some rules to follow if PowerPoint is the tool chosen:
 * Use the Blank content layout and a black, gray, or white background only.
 * Students must demonstrate competency over content before building slides.
 * No custom animation.
 * No bullets - slides are free! Use them!
 * No Word Art.
 * No clip art.
 * No reading off the screen.
 * Practice is important - students should do a rough cut to receive feedback before they do their final presentation.
 * Show students examples of good presentations. Some great examples are on TED talks, especially those by Ken Robinson and Seth Godin.
 * Some sources for images:
 * [|www.flickr.com/creativecommons]
 * []
 * [] - Lets you search Flickr.
 * When looking for images, encourage students to search for adjectives, not nouns. The results will be better-quality images and lead to more dynamic presentations.
 * When you have students manipulate images, there will be more ownership over the result, as well as more creativity expressed. Here are a few free image manipulation tools:
 * [] - This site has WAY more than just image manipulation. I can't even really describe everything that's on there. You can make motivational posters, a magazine cover, a cd cover, a movie poster, a trading card, and so so much more. Worth a look.
 * [|http://www.imagechef.com] - You can alter images here.
 * [|http://www.photofunia.com] - Add your face to another image. Kind of fun.
 * Some alternative to PowerPoint:
 * [|www.prezi.com] - A more dynamic presentation tool than powerpoint. Discourages big chunks of text just in its design.
 * [] - Holy heck, this is cool. Students can put things on digital display. Images, videos, files, whatever.
 * [|www.wallwisher.com] - It's apparently an online notice board maker. Used for discussions, notes, feedback, opinions, etc. I don't know for sure because it is not accessible through IE6. Perhaps when we get Firefox it will work.
 * [|www.animoto.com] - An online movie maker.