PowerPoint, Prezi, Glogster

Introduction

The technologies explored this week are presentation tools; PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster. 

Safe, ethical and legal practices:

Teachers need to talk to their students about safe, ethical and legal practices when creating these technologies.  Two of these tools are online and publicly accessible (Glogster can be set to private, and Prezi can too if you upgrade) which means that students need to be conscious of what they put on there.  This means that teachers need to ensure that their students do not put photos of themselves and others on their presentations for anyone to see and ensure that they don’t write anything identifying on their presentations, talking to them about why this is important.  They also need to talk to them about including images, video and sounds that are not their own and telling them that they must acknowledge whose property it is, both online and in their work that is not published online.  Teaching your students about safe, ethical and legal practices on the internet and when creating work is essential. 

PowerPoint

Technical Aspects:

While most people use the most basic form of a PowerPoint, there are many functions and actions that it can do to help improve a presentation that are overlooked.  People may just use it for putting on the slides a lot of text, few key images and maybe a few transitions.  However, it can be used for much more.

On PowerPoint you can add to your slides; images, videos, text, sound, transitions, hyperlinks, shapes, links, charts, tables, music.  This can increase how much is learnt from the PowerPoint and engage the audience more.  It also means that you can use PowerPoint for more than just the standard presentation.

Uses:

-a way to present and share information (class lessons, lectures, assignments, statistics)

-a platform to create books with

-a place to create images

-a way to display classroom routines and activities

-a place to display images for writing prompts

-a program to store images of a field trip, holiday, class tasks, students work, experiments, etc.

-Great way to show/ access lots of videos

-Can edit images (colour, brightness, size, background)

-Can create charts straight onto PowerPoint from data in Excel

-Can use it to easily access links to show your students by hyperlinking, or documents or sites you need to be able to get to regularly

-Teachers can record audio or videos of instructions (or written) for whole class work or for group activities that could be put on a tablet at the groups table

Plus	Minus	Interesting
· Simple to use · Can add transitions, backgrounds, animation, videos, images, audio, word art, text, shapes, charts, hyperlinks · Can insert whole albums of photographs · Can edit images · Countless ways to use it · Can save it in numerous different forms · Easier to flick through slides for a class lesson than scroll through a Word document · Most people own PowerPoint · Fairly easily accessed in schools · Can set timing or click manually to go to the next transition or slide · Can create slide notes · Can be used by kids of all ages · Easy to find information on how to do something	· Can’t insert Apple recordings straight onto it · Can’t upload to a blog · Video and audio does not always work on online applications	· More uses than just basic text and images

SAMR Model (A student)
Redefinition	Cutting down the text into dot points and including a few images.  Writing in the notes section to prompt them.  Including graphs to portray information.  Including videos both that they recorded of either them speaking, perhaps an engaging introduction, or acting out what is being said in the presentation, and videos on the topic that they have found online, to engage the audience.
Modification	Cutting down the text into dot points and including a few images.  Writing in the notes section to prompt them.  Including graphs to portray information.  Recording them talking and making it a voice over.
Augmentation	Cutting down the text into dot points and including a few images.
Substitution	Writing a whole presentation into a PowerPoint.

Prezi

“Prezi motivates students to learn more science as they create presentations for their classmates…. The social aspect adds a new dimension to brainstorming, collaborating, and editing a group project: Students don’t have to be in the same place or even the same class.” (Campbell & Williams-Rossi, p.54, 2012).

Technical Aspects:

Prezi’s are a digital presentation tool that is alternate to the usual PowerPoint.   Instead of moving from slide to slide like you would in a PowerPoint you move from frame to frame or picture to picture or frame to picture and vice versa.   You can add text, music, videos, PowerPoints, shapes and highlight. 

The key feature that Prezi has opposed to PowerPoint is the ability to zoom in and out.  The zoom function is probably its best feature as it has a very large zooming ability.  The zooming feature means that you can make images or text in your frames small and zoom into the whole or part of the image or text.  Due to the zoom function you can have the view show the entirety of the presentation and then zoom into the next section you want and then you can either move on or zoom in or out to show the wider view or how it links or a more focused snapshot.  You can also make frames within frames, like a subsection due to Prezi’s ability to zoom.  The zoom function means that you no longer have to strain your eyes to see tiny text on a presentation or image.

Uses:

-A way for teachers to zoom in on certain parts of an image or text that they want to show students

-A presentation tool –information, reports, experiments,  assignment presentations, images of a field trip, holiday, class tasks, students work,  experiments, etc. (some of these would need to be done on an upgraded account so that it could be made private and just used to present to the class)

-A way to share information with others online or in the classroom

-A way for students to show their learning journey (work samples)

-A place where the teacher can create a presentation on a private Prezi of the students work for a specific task and show it to their students

-Students or teachers can access other peoples Prezi’s to gain information or show examples of how a task should be done

-Used to create a presentation collaboratively by multiple people

-Can be used to show the links between information by drawing lines to link them or putting frames within frames to show that that piece of information is a part of that

-Can be used as a concept map, life cycle, this event lead to this event, food web, brainstorm tool, etc.  by drawing shapes to link the frames together

-A visual map of events (eg. frames of several decades with the years inside of them, going through one decade and the years in it then moving back out to the next decade and then going into their years)

Plus	Minus	Interesting
· Fairly simple to use · Can zoom right into certain pictures or text · You can add text, music, videos, PowerPoints, shapes and highlight. · Can go to the same frame or image multiple times · Lots of templates to choose from (which you can further edit the colours of and add or take things away) · Can be accessed and edited from any computer with internet, meaning you do not have to worry about saving it to a usb and having that or your computer with you to edit it · Saves automatically, meaning you can’t lose your work · Can be edited by multiple people, meaning it can be used collaboratively for group work and assignments or a whole class task	· Can be seen ad accessed publicly (unless you upgrade) (internet safety) · Needs the internet to work	· Can zoom into even the smallest of images

SAMR Model
Redefinition	Having a frame for each continent or country it affected and then zooming into the frames inside of that overarching frame being a certain country or town or aspect that the war affected- injuries, food, economy, events that took place in that country, etc.  Or having each frame as an aspect of war and the inner frames that it zoomed into as the countries to show the differences between what happened/ what people did in different countries.  Including images, videos, statistics that can be zoomed in on.
Modification	A mind map of the different events that happened in World War Two and the affects that they had, drawing lines between the frames to show any links and zooming in and out to see the full picture.  Inclusion of images.
Augmentation	A presentation about what happened in World War Two with written points that a student would verbally say and a few key images that showed what happened.
Substitution	A presentation about what happened in World War Two with just written points that a student would verbally say.

Glogster

Technical Aspects:

‘Glogster’ is a poster making platform that makes what are called ‘Glogs.’  It can be used on computers as well as iPad’s.  Images, videos, audio files, graphics, text and documents can be added to the ‘Glog.’  The backgrounds (walls) can be changed as well as the usual text editing (colour, font, bold, etc.).  A teacher can have a Glog and then add students to his/her class/classes.  “Glogster appeals to students who are visual learners by allowing them to create their own poster.” (Lightle, p.8, 2011). Glogster can be used for numerous different functions for both students and teachers, with multiple different templates prepared to be used. 

Uses:

-Create timelines for books, history, events, science experiments (growing plants)

-Create a science experiment report

-Create a report for an assignment –history, geography, sport, science, travel, book, english, field trip, etc.

-Create a fact/information sheet - to share with other students to improve their knowledge, as a revision sheet that the students create, made by the teacher to share with their students, as an assessment or classroom task

-Create a news report

-A place to access students work samples as Glogs, or documents in Glogs

-A place where students can view each other’s work

-A place where other Glogs can be accessed (Glogpedia)

-Create a presentation of your own work, a student’s work or several pieces of several students work over a range of different tasks or the same one

-A place to have access to the projects of all of your students

-Students can create a portfolio of their work

-A place to share images of a field trip, holiday, class tasks, students work,  experiments, etc. (some of these would need to be made private and just used to present to the class)

-Teachers can upload information about class or assessment tasks –information, examples, documents (task sheet, criteria sheet)

-Teachers can make a Glog with extension activates, information and links on it for early finishes and high students, or students who want to extend their learning at home

-Teachers can create glogs that have tasks on it that would be accessed in group rotations so that it would not have to be explained and they would have all the information

-Teachers can make glogs that have the homework tasks on it

Plus	Minus	Interesting
· Fairly simple to use · Can insert documents, images, text and video · Can set to private so that others cannot see students work to ensure internet safety · Multiple pre-made templates to give people ideas and make use much easier · Can access other people glogs to gain knowledge from · Allows teachers to create classes · Multiple uses (some listed above) · It can always be different with the countless backgrounds, images, templates, etc.	· Fiddly · Can’t resize images and text by adjusting the width and length separately · Is generally public · Can only access online	· You can access ‘Glogpedia’ which is a resource filled with other people glogs

SAMR Model
Redefinition	Students create several glogs for their assessment piece from research that they did on Glogpedia and the internet.  They have a timeline of the historic event that took place with images and videos as one Glog.  The write a history report on another, and create a Glog with links to other glogs and research.  They create a final Glog with other images and videos that they found that were related to the topic where they analyse what is happening in the image or video and what relevance it had to the historical topic.
Modification	Have students look at other glogs to get more ideas to research on reliable websites and then writing their reports on their Glog, including images and videos that they found in their research.
Augmentation	Having students write their reports on a Glog as a block of text and including a few images.
Substitution	Having students write their reports on a Glog as a block of text.

Comparison:

There are similarities and differences between the three tools.  Each of them are presentation tools where you can insert text, images and videos.  Glogster and Prezi are both online tools, whereas PowerPoint can be, but it is more used for just on a computer.  Glogster and Prezi can both be public or private.  Music can be added to both the Prezi and the PowerPoint.  Glogster is a stationary program but Prezi and PowerPoint move from slide to slide.  They can all be used to share and gain new knowledge.

Evidence of Technology:

PowerPoint: http://technologywithkids.weebly.com/managing-e-learning.html

http://sarshaelearning.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/powerpoint.html   (where I have posted the link and talked about making it)

Prezi: https://prezi.com/g-u2myuohtkd/my-e-learning-journey-thus-far/

http://sarshaelearning.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/prezi.html   (where I have posted the link and talked about making it)

 Glogster: http://sarsha66.edu.glogster.com/sarshas-ramp-experiment/

http://sarshaelearning.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/glogster.html   (where I have posted the link and talked about making it)

References:

Campbell, L. O., & Williams-Rossi, D. (2012). The way they want to learn. Sci Teacher, 79(1), 52-56.

Glogster EDU,. (2015). Glogster: Create and Explore Educational Content Online. Edu.glogster.com.                              Retrieved 12 August 2015, from http://edu.glogster.com/

Lightle, K. (2011). More than just the technology. Science Scope, 34(9), 6-9.