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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Educreations: adding students

I've talked about Educreations before and I love it for students to demonstrate their learning and understanding of pretty much any concept. Because students must narrate what is happening on screen, it's easy for the teacher to understand what they are thinking.

One of the features I also love about Educreations is the classroom management. Teachers can create multiple classes with any number of students in them. Creating student accounts and enrolling them in your classes is a snap. When a teacher wants to review student projects, its super easy because all of the projects are in one location.

Another advantage to setting up classes is that the teacher can create a video lesson and assign it to the class to watch. This is a great way to deliver content to your students.

Here are the steps of setting up classes using an iPad. The process is similar on the website.

1. From the lessons screen tap on the My Classes icon.
2. Tap the + symbol.
3. Fill in the information about your class and tap Save.

4. Tap on your class name and you'll see a class code. This is the code students will enter when they create their accounts. They can create their account either by tapping the gear icon or they will be prompted to create an account when they save their first project.
5. Another advantage to creating classes is that you can assign specific video lessons to that class. In your class screen tap the + button at the top and either create a new lesson or select an already saved lesson. Students will then see this lesson when they log in to their account.

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Awesome iPad App: Educreations

Educreations is a unique interactive whiteboard and screencasting app. Students and teachers can annotate, animate, and narrate any type of content to teach a concept or demonstrate mastery. As you draw on the screen you record your voice to produce your own video lesson that can be shared with anyone.

Educreations is available for free from the iTunes app store. It is also available as a web app, although that can be a bit harder to use. Teachers can create a class account and assign students their own log in using a class code. Students can then post videos to their own stream, creating a portfolio of learning.

It is important to keep in mind that while recording a project you can start and stop your project at anytime. However, you cannot rewind or edit a recording in progress. Its very helpful to plan out your project ahead of time, in order to minimize potential mistakes.

Launch Educreations and tap the + button to begin.

1. Tap the pen tool and begin writing on the screen as you explain a concept, just as if you were tutoring a friend.
2. Tap the + button to add a text box, images from the Camera Roll, internet, Dropbox, Google Drive or Camera. All images can be resized, rotated, or positioned anywhere on the screen.
3. Tap the Record button to begin narrating. Videos cannot be shared or saved unless they have a recording. You cannot edit the recording. If you mess up, you’ll have to start the project from the beginning. You can pause, start and stop the project at any time.
4. Tap the arrows to move from page to page (screen to screen).
5. Tap the share icon to save your draft or save the final draft and upload it to the website.

Teachers can create a class for students to join using a unique code. Students can then log in with their own username and password. Any videos students create will then be saved to their own stream. Teachers can access all student videos.

You have the option of saving videos as private or public. When saving as private, you can email a link to the video for others to watch. When saving as My Students you can provide students and families with a code to register for the site and then view the lessons.

Integration Ideas

• Construct and describe the setting of a story.
• Write and perform the inner dialogue of a character in a particular point of a story.
• Demonstrate the steps of a math problem.
• Create graphs to differentiate between sets of data.
• Compare different animals or plants.
• Using pictures, students can explain the life cycle of an animal, the rock cycle, or the water cycle.
• When given a picture of a plant, students can identify the parts of a plant.
• Create a scientific journal, sketching the steps to a science fair project.

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

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