Best power point ever!

Copyright final images 5 from amandasonnier

I made one major change to the power point this time around.  After the "Why bother" slide, I added in a cute picture of a young girl on a laptop with the ominous heading "No one is safe..." In the presenter notes I've added the story of Brianna LaHara, a 12 year old girl who was amongst the first sued by the RIAA in 2003 ("Music Firms Target 12-year-old," 2003). The idea is to tug at your heartstrings, and inspire fear, strongly engaging your emotions.  Apart from changing the reference pages to include the news articles I cited, I did nothing else.  I attempted to add music to my presentation, but that appears to be a feature not supported either by the export function of Keynote, or possibly the version of Powerpoint I was using, or possibly slideshare.  Most likely all three. Because after I added sounds to my powerpoint it did not export or save properly, nor did the sounds play through the powerpoint presentation, nor did it upload properly. So we will proceed without sound.  Since I already have several elements to engage emotions, I felt no further change was necessary. 

I have also gone bad and added references from all the images I've used.  I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to cite these before, but I've fixed it now. 

They Snooze, You Lose Ch. 9

In the ninth chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author emphasizes using the audiences’ emotions to increase retention of the information in your presentation. 

I was not surprised to know that an emotional story was more effective than statistics alone.  What I was surprised by was that including statistics actually reduced the effectiveness of the presentation. I suppose that as a society, we’ve been bombarded by so many statistics that we tend to tune them out. I wonder if this extends to other factual information. In a world where the facts are readily available via Google, do our presentations need to do more than point people in the right direction?  Of course in most school settings this isn’t appropriate.  Of course we have to convey the factual information.  That’s the whole point. I’m not quite sure how to include something to tug on my students’ heartstrings in an Algebra 1 presentation, but I will think about it. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

They Snooze, You Lose Ch 8.

In the eighth chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author discusses using music during presentations.  Burmark (2011) reminds us that music is a powerful tool to influence the emotions of those viewing our presentations, and encourages us to use it.

I completely agree that music is an important part of presentations. On occasion I will watch independent films, and sometimes, they come without a soundtrack.  Almost inevitably, I don’t like these films, because I don’t feel like I connect with the plot. Alternatively, there is a theater in Dallas called Pocket Sandwich Theater.  It specializes in house written melodramas, and one of the things I love the most about it, is each melodrama is accompanied by cheesy piano music, specifically designed to let the audience know when to cheer for the hero, and when to boo for the villain and throw popcorn. I’m not sure, however, how to add music to my presentations - particularly those about mathematics.  I’ll have to ponder it a bit. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Wow! Could this power point get any better?

The first change I made was to the title page.  I found an image and made it full screen. Since the background was already yellow, I changed the font from yellow to black.  Burmark (2011) suggests using images that fill the screen, and I agree.  It looks much better. I also had the image on the next slide fill the screen.  I moved the text to an empty corner for visibility. I already had incorporated several elements of humor, and I used compare and contrast on the "What's in the public domain?" page. I moved the implied license slides to just after the fair use slides.  I feel like implied license and fair use are two sides of one coin, and should be put together. My next change was to add the "It's only a sin if you get caught" slide.  I used a full screen image with elements of humor, comparing copyright infringement to burglary. The title is humorous as well, but also captures an important concept of fair use, and implied license; relying on either could be dangerous. It's better to rely on an implicit license, which is why the next slide is about creative commons licenses. The last changes were to make the images on the last two slides full screen, and to move the text to an appropriate location.

They Snooze, You Lose Ch. 7

In the seventh chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author speaks on the importance of full color images that connect with the content you are trying to convey.  Burmark (2011) discusses the positioning and size of photos.

Burmark’s (2011) photo with the Norman Vincent Peale quote struck me as one of those “I knew that” moments (p. 123). I’ve seen hundreds of images like this on the internet.  Some funny, some inspirational.  I’ve seen them on posters in classrooms.  Why haven’t I seen them in my own presentations?  It’s a bit like walking through the woods, looking around, and suddenly seeing a deer standing stock still ten feet from you, where a minute ago, you saw nothing but foliage. I can easily use images as a backdrop for my presentations.  It will be something I work to do more of in the future. It’s also shocking how much difference the color makes, particularly on the velcro photo (Burmark, 2011, p. 115).

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

They Snooze, You Lose Ch. 5

In chapter five of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author builds on the previous chapter’s concepts of making new information “stick,” by discussing using prior knowledge, making abstract concepts more concrete,  and using compare and contrast. Burmark (2011) says that in order to get people to retain information they have to make a connection to it. 

I’ve heard that using compare and contrast in classrooms is incredibly effective from multiple sources.  I’ve even seen it in my own classroom. One of the SMART notebook apps is a template where a set of words, images, numbers or other symbols can be sorted into one of two swirling vortexes. When I would lecture about mitosis and meiosis as two separate entities, I would get blank stares. We took short quizzes over each topic, and the grades I got back left me in despair. So when I went to another faculty meeting where my administration was singing the praises of compare and contrast, I went back to my classroom armed with some venn diagrams. We filled out the diagrams together as a class, and I let the kids play with the swirling vortex app on the SMART board.  After a week of studying mitosis and meiosis as they related to each other, instead of in a vacuum, quiz scores on both topics rose dramatically. I will be including it in many more presentations in the future. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

They Snooze, You Lose Ch. 6

In the sixth chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author emphasizes the importance of humor in a good presentation. Burmark (2011) discusses what humor is, why it is important in the classroom, and a few techniques on how to make it work for you. 

One of the best teachers in my building puts a science joke meme on the board every day with the morning’s instructions. When she was absent for a few days, one of the loudest complaints she got when she returned was that there were no jokes on the board with the substitute. Students do notice when we make an attempt to include humor in our presentations, no matter how bad they think our jokes are. I was really surprised to see the benefits of laughter quantified. I was aware that it lifted your mood, but I had no idea it also raised your immunity.  Working with high schoolers, however, I’m more likely to make them groan than laugh. I’ll see what I can do about that.

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Newer and more improved slide show!

Copyright final images 2 from amandasonnier

I've made several changes to certain pictures.  Every picture I replaced has been replaced with a photo from fickr with a creative commons license, because it's always better to know you can use a photo, than to think you can use a photo. The first photo I changed was under the "Why bother?" slide.  The old photo seemed almost cheerful with it's bright orange.  This new photo is in black and white, and has a more sinister emotional tug to it. Here I'm using emotion to engage the audience. On the next slide, I've added a picture of a "get out of jail free" card. The juxtaposition of this with the previous slide's picture adds an element of humor, that will help engage the audience. It also calls up some prior knowledge. On the next page I've replaced a simple copyright symbol with a picture that spells out the words "no copy."  I feel that this better connects with the message this slide is supposed to convey.  The next slide I changed was the fair use slide.  This picture invokes prior knowledge of fairness and justice, which fits perfectly with the fair use concept. On the "get permission" slide, I've put in a picture of a boy on his knees, begging.  It adds a layer of humor and is much more engaging than the permission granted stamp that was there before. The last change I made was to replace the simple light bulb with a light bulb topped robot figure on the ideas and processes page.  I feel like this picture makes a deeper connection to the concept of ideas and processes than does the overly simplistic light bulb photo. 

They Snooze, You Lose Ch. 4

In the fourth chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author discusses ways to get students’ attention without distracting them, ways to keep their attention, and discusses the importance of building on prior knowledge.

The velcro metaphor is a good one, and makes a lot of sense.  However, I’m ashamed to say it took me reading through the chapter three times before I understood the quote “We might say that the primary job of educators is ‘to transform todays hooks into tomorrows loops’” (Burmark, 2011 p. 65). The buzzword in education that would have made me make the connection a lot sooner is “Prior Knowledge.” In fact, I wrote it in large letters on this page.  Of course, we present new information and try to “hook” it onto prior knowledge, or build schema.  Once it’s connected to something in a way students remember, it in turn becomes prior knowledge, on which you can build new concepts. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

They Snooze, You Lose Ch 3

In the third chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author discusses the different types of presenter: the lecturer, the entertainer, the motivational speaker, and the educator. Burmark (2011) gives tips on how to be a good educator.  

Burmark’s (2011) tip number 8, do the preparation, is perhaps the hardest to abide by in the classroom.  As a classroom teacher, my time is very limited, and I’m presenting new information every few days. Doing the preparation work for an insanely great presentation every time I present new material, while that is exactly what I would like to do, is simply not feasible. The best I can do is identify which Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) students struggle with most, and do my best to make presentations on those topics insanely great. 

One other thing I’m struggling with is how to incorporate this type of presentation into a high school math class. Certain information has to be presented.  A lot of it has to do with how to manipulate specific symbols.  It’s difficult to understand how a few full color pictures can get across even a general understanding of the concepts I’m trying to teach.  I’d like to see examples of people who have managed it. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

New and Improved Copyright Powerpoint

Copyright final images from amandasonnier

The first thing I did was to change the template to a blue background with yellow wording, in order to make the text easy to read, and to draw your eye to it first. Then I removed all my lengthy wording, and put it in the presenters notes. That is text to be spoken, not read. In some cases, I felt like the text needed to remain on the slide, so I shortened it to as few words as possible.  I added an image to every slide that did not have text on it anymore, to give you some idea of what each slide is about; sort of a main idea in image form. I tried left justifying my titles, but it really didn't look right. Without a box or a title bar to anchor the words, having them over there looks distracting.  So I put them back in the center.

They Snooze You Lose Ch. 2

In chapter 2 of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author discusses the role of slides, handouts, and the presenter.  Burmark (2011) condemns the practice of using printouts of the slides as a handout, and that of the presenter reading the slides.  She explains that the roles of each should not overlap, or make one another redundant (Burmark, 2011).

The handout is something that I have yet to master.  I would like very much to find the best way to give my students a handout with all the information they need, without them feeling like they don’t need to pay attention to my presentation.  I think the most effective way to do that is, as Burmark (2011) suggests, not to put the information I want my students to retain directly on the slide in text form.  I can’t count how many times I have had to stop my presentation for one or two students to finish copying material off of the slides and into their notes. If I can master a handout, with just the right amount of blanks in it, students will need to pay attention to what I’m saying, will hopefully be interested in looking at the images on my slides, and will still get all the information they need. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

They Snooze You Lose Ch 1.

In the first chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author explores briefly some things you can do to make your presentations immediately better.  She addresses color, backgrounds, centering, capitalizing, images and the number of words on each slide. 

Some of the tips that are mentioned are things I have always done, and seem fairly self explanitory.  For example, backgrounds should not be a distraction from what you are trying to present. (Burmark, 2011).  And some of the tips, while not in and of themselves surprising, had interesting research numbers of which I was not aware, such as color increasing willingness to read and retention (Burmark, 2011). I did know that color was important to presentations, and that color could make my presentation better. I did not know that it would make people more willing to read my presentation, and better able to remember my presentation. Two things directly conflicted to what I had been taught about presentations.  The first was that headings should not be centered, but left justified. Certainly, it makes perfect sense that since we read from left to right, we should start our text in the left hand corner.  But I have been taught always that titles should be centered. The second was that all capital letters should not be used in the title. I was taught that capital letters grab attention and make titles appear more important.  According to Burmark (2011) all they do is make the text harder to read. 

References

Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Web 2.0

I’m really enjoying taking EDTC 6340.  One of the things I have been really surprised by is the term Web 2.0.  I’ve heard the word before, in inservice and training, but I never had anyone explain what it meant.  Someone would use the term “Web 2.0” and then talk about the internet.  I grew up alongside the digitalization of the world, as it were, and never remember a time when the web wasn’t about interacting with other people. My first experience with the internet was the Sierra Network.  I remember it having games you could play with other people, email, forums, and shopping. So this idea that there is a “newer” component of the web designed to be interactive, rather than static, frankly baffles me. From my perspective, that’s what the internet has always been. 

I think my biggest challenge in implementing the use of “Web 2.0” technologies in my classroom is, and will continue to be, access through filters.  Administrations are struggling to find a balance between keeping kids safe and letting them explore.  Mine is no different.  Currently, of the tools we have used so far in this class, only padlet and wordle are not blocked at my school. And I believe if my administration knew what padlet was, it would probably be blocked. I am hoping that I can learn enough to show my administration the potential of these tools to help our students learn in new ways. But I believe it will be a challenge.

Copyright Point Presentation

This power point presentation is designed to be shared with the education community in order to help them abide by the law when making presentations.

Copyright final from amandasonnier

Welcome

Hi there!  My name is Amanda. I'm a teacher.  It's more than my job though, it's a big part of who I am.  Yes I have a job teaching high school, but I also teach swing dancing.  I'm President of Denton Swing Dance Organization. I'm a DIY blogger and write tutorials over at Handy Mandy's Project Emporium.  I've never had a hobby or a job in which I was not in some way educating someone else.  I can't imagine doing anything else with my life!

My perfect day would, of course, be a Saturday.  No one should have to work on a perfect day. It would begin with someone I love making me cinnamon rolls. Then we would build something together. Lunch would be some kind of Italian food, and we would spend the afternoon watching a musical. Dinner would be fondue, at the Melting Pot, and then we'd go swing dancing until the wee hours of the morning.

If I could get one message across to people, it would be that kindness costs nothing. Being kind to people is simple and easy, but so many people don't do it.  You'd never imagine how much people need you to be kind to them, and you'd never imagine how something that small can be of so much value.

In one of his more interesting TED talks, Sir Ken Robinson makes a passionate and well worded argument that creativity is one of the most important resources students bring to their own education, that school systems around the world systematically repress creativity in children, and that we need to radically rethink the way we educate our children. I really like the analogy he uses to compare the current education system to the strip mining industry.