Welcome to the Summer EdTech Challenge! Summertime is a wonderful time to be a teacher! It's the perfect time to recharge your batteries, catch up on trends in education, read for pleasure, and learn new things. How about taking the opportunity to learn new tech skills or try out new tools and strategies?Each Monday this summer I'll post a simple tech challenge, something you can do between dips in the pool and binge watching your favorite TV show. These challenges are practical, easy to implement ideas to help you develop your tech skills and start next year off on the right technology foot!
I've blogged about many tools and have many favorites. Some tools are linear in nature, just like PowerPoint, while others allow the user to choose the order they consume the information. When we provide students with a variety of tools, they can pick the tool they like best for the task at hand. Some might prefer the visuals of Haiku Deck, while others want to make a quick video in PowToon or iMovie.
The table below provide links to my 9 favorite apps for student presentations. Some links will take you to my reviews, where available. The review may be just for the iPad app, but most also have a website that can be used on desktops, laptops, and Chromebooks. Other links will take you to other websites with more information. This list is by no means definitive - I'm still learning about great tools myself! You may want to check out Student Presentations: Moving Beyond PowerPoint for some other ideas and resources.
| Linear | ||
|---|---|---|
| Haiku Deck | Google Slides | Prezi |
| Visual | ||
| ThingLink | Spark Page | Smore |
| Video | ||
| Spark Video | iMovie | PowToon |
Your EdTech Challenge this week is to pick a presentation app, learn about it, and pick one of your learning activities where students will use that app. You are not limited to these 9 apps - let me know if you find another great one! Don't forget to come back to this post and let me know what app you picked and how your students will use it.
I agree with your theory that teachers do need to re-charge the batteries and summer time is a great start. In addition the I like the ideal of giving students choices on presenting. It allows for more creativity as well as gives them a voice to express themselves different from there peers. Too many times as educators we don't allow students to find there niche we expect them to do things one way therefore creating a boring learning environment. I hope more teachers get on board continue the good work.
ReplyDeleteMark,
DeleteI sure enjoyed exploring Haiku Deck, PowToon and iMovie. I actually found PowToon to be most effective in my Physical Education class. I have always had students complete a 3rd quarter project and I feel like PowToon could be really effective in my class. My initial idea is to have them create a presentation on a sport or fitness exercise using PowToon.
I like that fact that it was easy to learn and navigate through. I think my students will be able create some great projects and presentations with this technology tool. Thanks for the great idea and information.
I'm glad this post was useful to you. I love giving students choices in their tools and letting them use their creativity when it comes time to present. I can totally see how PowToon would work with your idea. Those will be some awesome videos. I hope you come back and share when they are done!
DeleteMark,
ReplyDeleteI didn't take this challenge this summer, but I did take a mac book class this summer because coming from a PC background I was so frustrated with my mac. I'm glad I did, I learned so many things and I hope I won't be as frustrated this year.
I recommended Powtoons to a student I had last year who hated writing, but loved comic books. He didn't enjoy it (he didn't like many things though) because he couldn't figure out how to draw his own cartoon. Is that something that's available on there? I would like in my spare time (ha!) to use it to create some class videos.
What?! How can you be confused with Macs? :) I'm glad you stuck with it and learned some new skills.
DeleteI don't know of a good program where the student can DRAW their own cartoons, but you could check out Comic Life (https://plasq.com/apps/comiclife/macwin/) which lets you create comics. There's a desktop app and a mobile app. Not free, but very very good products.
This is a very helpful table that I will make sure to return to when planning student presentations. I have definitely been stuck in a power point rut. I think some would be great to use for staff meetings as well. Thank you for the excellent resource.
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ReplyDeleteI truly enjoyed reading your blog about technology resources. I personally have enjoyed prezi tool for power point presentation and find this very effective. I do intent to continue to use this tool in my classes for lessons as well as encourage students to use it. Besides prezi, I have explored animoto a bit too and find this very interesting from student's perspective, but haven't used it much.
ReplyDeleteAnimoto is another good app. I've used it a few times and kids really love it. Thanks for reading my blog!
DeleteI just wanted to let you know that I actually did read these on our school chat over the summer and found them very informative. I appreciate having another chance to check out the blog so that I can come back to these ideas when I have more time to follow up. Thank you for the ideas.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to hear you were reading all these challenges. Be sure to come back and share what you've done!
DeleteI enjoyed reading about the different technologies on your post! Interestingly enough, I took an online course in June for Intro to Blended Learning and one of our assignments was to present information that we learned using a variety of choices given to us by the teacher. I picked PowToons. I found it challenging yet fun to use. I think if I used it more so that I felt proficient in it, I would use it a lot more. Putting in the animation was fun.
ReplyDeleteSee! We all like choices! Powtoons is a ton of fun to use, but is rather complex. Once someone masters it, those videos are really awesome to see.
DeleteI love learning about new technology to use with students. I had a lot of good experiences using IMovie. I feel it's important to find new ways for students to present information. I am sure students use many different type of technology at home with the evolution of video games. So, I'm sure a simple Powerpoint doesn't really motivate students like it did in the past.
ReplyDeleteI agree - today's students expect more engagement with their technology. They especially love making their own videos. Even my very young daughters enjoy making them!
DeleteReading this makes me realize I need a lot of help in the tech department. I'm not currently teaching, but I might go back someday. Your blog would be very helpful in helping me get caught up in the technology department. I have 5 teenagers at home, so whenever I have an issue, I just grab one of them.
ReplyDeleteI just read this post and I after looking at all of these tech choices I decided to use Powtoon with my class. It was a great success! We create a presentation for our Leadership Night and the students had so much fun putting sounds, words, and effects with the information. Thanks for the great idea!
ReplyDeleteI'm so impressed that you used Powtoon with your 2nd graders! It's a cool little tool to use with students.
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