Student Presentation Apps

Today was my district's annual iDevice Mini-Conference. I always love these conferences because of all the learning and sharing. There are so many good ideas that come from them! I facilitated two sessions on student presentations. Because of the focus on iDevices, I shared several apps that I love to use for helping students share their learning.

Rather than just focus on tools, I like to discuss ways to help students be better presenters. My inspiration comes from a blog post by Lisa Nielsen called Stop Letting Good Students Do Bad Presentations.  She outlines 6 tips teachers can use to help students be better presenters. I think these tips are more important than learning the apps. It doesn't matter how well students use the app or how easy the app is, if they present their content poorly all the hard work is lost.

My beginners session focused on 3 basic apps that are simple enough for students and teachers to transition from the idea of PowerPoint to doing the same style presentations on an iPad. The session handout can be downloaded here and the presentation is below.


Student Presentation Basics - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

The three apps I focused on for this session are

• Keynote
• Haiku Deck
• Educreations

In the advanced session I also added information about a new presenting method I absolutely love called PechaKucha. PechaKucha 20x20 is a simple presentation format where students show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images advance automatically and students talk along to the images. This helps them be concise and stay on topic. It forces them to let pictures tell their story.

The session handout can be downloaded here and the presentation is embedded below.


Engaging Student Presentations - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

The three apps I focused on for this session were specifically chosen because they don't follow the traditional slideshow format typically used in PowerPoint.

• ThingLink
•  Sock Puppets
• Adobe Voice

These are some simply, yet powerful apps that can really help students be creative and show their learning.

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Student Presentations: Moving Beyond PowerPoint

Last week I presented at the Clark County School District Blended Learning Mini-Conference at Valley HS. My session was on Student Presentations: Moving Beyond PowerPoint. When I signed up to present at the conference I hadn't planned on this topic, but when it came up I realized that it was just right for me!

I have a strong aversion to PowerPoint, mostly because presentations are designed so poorly with it. I've sat through enough presentations where the presenter put too many words on a slide, used text and graphic animations that are unnecessary and distracting, or just looked amateurish. There are a number of digital tools out there that can help make presentations more engaging to watch.

My goal with the session was two-fold: help teachers understand the need to teach students proper presentations skills (after all, it doesn't matter what tool you use if still don't present in an effective way) and share alternatives that can easily be used to create effective presentations.

The Haiku Deck used for the presentation is embedded below or you can view it here side-by-side with my notes.


Student Presentations - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

I gave participants a one page version of the points I made.

I also created and shared a chart listing all of the digital tools I shared. The chart lists information about each tool so teachers can make informed decisions about what tools to try out.

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Awesome iPad App: Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck is a free presentation app for iPad that puts the fun back into presentations. Haiku Deck is highly visual, relying on high quality graphics for background images and limiting the amount of text displayed on a slide. That is one of the biggest reasons I like it - because of the limited text, students must really know their material when presenting their deck.

Haiku Deck projects are uploaded to their website and can be shared from the web or from the iPad. Because users need an email address to create the account, I recommend teachers in lower grades create a class account that everyone saves to. Haiku Decks can also be created right on their website, so no iPad needed!

Check out this 30 second overview of Haiku Deck.

Quick Preview: Haiku Deck for iPad from Haiku Deck on Vimeo.

Launch Haiku Deck and tap the + button to create a new deck. You’ll be prompted to enter a title for your deck. This is a good place to type in your name as the author as well.

1. Pull down the Theme tab to select a different theme.
2. Text tab: choose text layout and enter the text for each slide.
3. Image tab: search for a background image. All images are high quality and creative commons licensed. You can insert your own images or choose to enter a bar or pie graph.
4. Layout tab: change the layout position of the elements on your slide.
5. Notes tab: add public notes to include more detail and links to other resources. These are available alongside each slide when shared online.
6. Slide sorter: add and rearrange more slides.
7. Preview your presentation
8. Tag your presentation and share it.

Text tab: choose a layout or list type for your text

Image tab: search for high quality images or choose a type of graph

Layout tab: choose a position and layout for the text

Notes tab: type presentation notes

All decks created on the iPad and online are automatically synced across devices (iPads and web). You can present right from the web or connect your iPad to a projector.

Integration Ideas

• Tell a story in pictures.
• Create a sensory poem.
• Present research information.
• Illustrate figurative language.
• Produce a word study using images.
• Use images to explore the concepts of big and little, etc.
• Create vocabulary building flash cards on any concept.
• Do a character study for a book the class is reading.
• P.E. teachers can demonstrate athletic positions.

Download the Tech Integration Challenge for Haiku Deck and see if you are up to the challenge!

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