Week 5 Reflection and Engagement

Week Five Reflection and Learning Engagement!
This week we would be looking at the collection and collation of multimedia resources for presentation purposes. We would be looking at PowerPoint, Glogster and Prezi.
Engagement Activity 1- Create A PowerPoint
I had experience in PowerPoint as a support to an oral presentation in the classroom, much like an information sheet. I had never tried to incorporate it as an essential part of my lesson. Using PowerPoint this week we began with the basics, I tried to create a PowerPoint that a Year 8 English class relied on.

Some more ideas on how to use PowerPoint in the classroom that I would use taken from, Tuscaloosa City Schools Online technology Centre, are Vocabulary Flash Cards, students are given either the word and they have to present the definition or vice versa, an excursion slide show of student taken pictures, Autobiographical stories, Interactive Book reports, Collaborative learning group slide shows, Poetry readings and student portfolios. The beauty of PowerPoint in the 21st Century classroom is that it is no longer a teacher's presentation tool, the ability to embed images, narration, video, music and transitions make it a fun learning tool for students. 
Engagement Activity 2- Create an interactive PowerPoint. 

PowerPoints are generally though to be a linear process, you click slide after slide in a specific configuration, with the iplementation of a creative PowerPoint this is no longer the case. Through the Outline feature in word and the hyperlink feature in PowerPoint you can now create a presentation that allows the audience to take it where it likes. This style of PowerPoint could also be used for Create your own ending story, similar to the GooseBumps era. or a reasoning process on whether ot not a process is effective. 

Engagement Activity 3- Create a Prezi

A Prezi was something I have never heard of before so when I signed up and started to view some of the presentations I was amazed! Prezi is an interactive presentation tool through the use of multiple frames you can zoom in and out on specific inforamation or images, create a path that is holistic, embedd images and video. After watching the professional Prezi presentation I was more than keen to begin my own, only to find.. it wasn't as easy as it looked! Getting a hold of the 'zebra' gadget that allows you to move, add, reposition frames and text was a tricky device. So off I went again to watch more tutorials and return to my task later! After watching five or six tutorials I had another crack at the Prezi, and this is the result. The equivilent of a 7-9 slide PowerPoint had taken me over 2 hours! But guess what? I could not have been more thrilled with it! I though it was engaging, both visually and mentally, I thought it was fun and informative and I had no doubt I would be using this in my future classrooms, after some skillful mastering of course! I have outlined some of the uses in a classroom in my Prezi presentation. 
Engagement Activity 4- Create a Glogster
I am choosing Glogster as my third tool for analysis, so I will discuss in detail the affordances of this tool in my next post. In the meantime check out my very own Glog!