New Ideas for Presentations

Last week at NCTIES, I went to quite a few good presentations. One of those presentations was on "Powerful Presentations" by Ken Shelton (@k_shelton on Twitter). My notes from his session can be found here. I am not a fan of PowerPoint, and I think the reason is because people fill it full of text and read from the presentation. I had always heard about a lot of different rules for best practice PowerPoints. One of the things that Ken said, was that there are no rules. Symbols with a small amount of text can be very powerful in a presentation. If you use color to highlight certain words, the eye goes to that color first and reinforces your idea.

I liked the idea of using a presentation to convey a story. Wouldn't it be cool to show a picture on your IWB or monitor of an image, then have students write a paragraph of what they think the image is conveying. I bet every student would have a different story from looking at the image you are projecting. And, wait, aren't they using their imaginations and writing skills? Ken said to make the image cover the entire page, not just a portion of it. Also, make sure you choose a high quality image so it doesn't become blurry or pixelated. Ken also did several workshops on the use of photography and images. In Powerful Presentations, he was talking about how we could take pictures everywhere and start creating our own photography stock pile. This means you wouldn't have to search for Creative Commons images or cite images because they would be your own. Since a lot of students have their own phones with cameras or even digital cameras, you could assign them to take pictures of something you might be studying. For instance, if you are studying angles in geometry, have them go out and find angles in the school, community, etc. Another idea is if you are studying minerals or metal, have them find something that has that mineral or metal in it.

Another idea that he touched on that I liked was about fonts. I admit it, I used to do almost everything in Comic Sans. I got tired of Comic Sans pretty quickly, but didn't really understand why. Here is a funny web site that talks about Comic Sans. So much of what we do is on the web now, that trying to read Comic Sans is too hard. It is much easier to read a Sans Serif font. A couple of Sans Serif fonts to use would be Trebuchet, Futura, Gill Sans, Franklin Gothic. These fonts don't have feet and therefore won't run together. Some bad ones to use would be Comic Sans, Brush Script, Casual, and Bradley Hand.

This video by Don McMillan is very funny. I am sure you have seen these same mistakes in from your students and in other workshops.

 Video: http://youtu.be/lpvgfmEU2Ck

Are you looking for some Science?

Serving as both the 5^th/6^th grade Gifted Education teacher and the Grades 3-5 Science Specialist at an elementary school, Jayne Grubbs has a hectic schedule but loves every minute of it! She uses the information and questions from Wonderopolis in some pretty interesting ways. 

In class, Jayne distributes “Curiosity Questions” to her students. Students can earn “bugs” for thinking about and exploring possible answers to those questions … most of which come from Wonderopolis.  The “bugs” students are trying to earn is part of a motivational technique used in her class.

Jayne finds ways to connect what may seem a simple question to a pretty detailed exploration of a science topic. She loves the way she is able to use good nonfiction text from Wonderopolis to integrate reading with science and to even bring in some social studies every once in a while.

Here are a few of the past Wonders she has used to serve as inspiration:

#191 Where do diamonds come from? She used the information about diamonds lead into a discussion of fossils. Students were involved in comparing and contrasting diamonds and fossils. They even had to write diamante poems comparing the two.  I think that was one of her favorite lessons she has done.

#262 Can Plants Grow Without Soil?

She used this one as an introduction to hydroponics and created a very strong science lesson to go along with it. The more recent Wonder #487 Do All Plants Have Roots? would also be a great tie in.

#228 Do Elephants Ever Forget? The exploration of this one prompted the students to explore what makes a person’s memory work and not work. Students were so engaged that one student woke up in the middle of the night afraid of what would happen if he lost his memory and did not remember to breathe.

#422 Is the Sky falling?  This wonder was used to explore meteors and comments in a 3^rd grade class to go along with a state objective about how gravity affects things in space. 

#432  Can Woolly Worms Predict the Weather?  This wonder inspired a month long curiosity question and unit about how animals prepare for winter and how can we tell they are preparing for winter.

#355 Do Plants Need Hair Cuts?  To go along with this wonder, her students did an experiment involving placing plant clippings in colored water to enable them to watch how the water moved through the veins in the plant.

Jayne loves how excited the kids are and also mentions that she has so much fun looking at all Wonderopolis has to offer that she could do it all day long! To hear her talk about all the things her students are doing, it is evident how much of an impact these activities are having on both the students and her as the teacher. I really need to get a video the next time we talk.

According to Jayne, she wants students to learn how to ask questions and to think.

Asking questions and exploring topics is what Wonderopolis is all about!!! 

Talk about a great connection!

Re-Opening my Eyes to Instruction

This week I had a great opportunity to be in Alpharetta and Atlanta Georgia.  While in Atlanta I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the Ron Clark Academy and sit in on a class.  This was the first time that I have ever been there and in my normal fashion was late getting to the school.  As we came into the classroom I found a seat on the far side of the room and had walk through the room to sit.  I quickly moved across the room as quietly as I could, while doing so I noticed that non of the students were disrupted by my tardiness and that Ron Clark kept their attention the whole time.

The room was alive with action, Ron Clark was talking, students were responding and interacting to his queues all without giving a second thought to the number of people that were staring at them around the room.  As I looked around the room I thought to myself, wow how can these kids be able to keep focused with almost double their number in adults sitting there watching.  Then Ron turned the tables on us, the adults, he had the students grab an adult to help them work out different math problems he had posted around the room.  So our student led us over to the one of the questions and he was working it out so fast that when it came time to answer it on our ActivExpression we did not even have the unit on and working.  Then we did another activity with the students and we were all engaged in the classroom activity.  Me I was awestruck at how well behaved and comfortable the students were with us in the room.  Almost like it was old hat to them.  I came to find out a short time later that these students had only been in the school for just around 30 days.

At the end of the lesson Ron Clark gave the adults in the room the opportunity to ask questions of the students.  I was amazed again at the students responses.  There were very well spoken and thanked us for asking the questions.  One question that I had my co-worker asked a young girl in the room was how she and the class felt about having all of the adults coming through on a regular basis.  She responded with that is was almost second nature to them and they were happy to have us in the room because were excited to see the students learn and they thrived on the energy.  I heard the question come up about whether or not they were treated differently now that they were at the Academy by their peers.  The answer came out that things had not really changed all that much.

In talking with someone a little bit later who said that these students had come from so many differing situations and felt so proud of what these children had accomplished in just a short amount of time was remarkable.  Me I could not believe it.  Which led me to share on another co-workers blog post It started with a simple question..   what I learned this week and that is, "regardless of a child's situation if they have a goal and are focused on that goal they can overcome and accomplish anything."

Now I am not the type of person that gets overcome by certain things but as we were leaving all of the students in the classroom were shaking our hands and thanking us for coming in and sharing their day with them, but one little girl came up and said I don't shake hands I give hugs and thanked me for being there and sharing in her day.  I could not believe it and was overcome with some emotion that this young child whom had never seen me before was comfortable with hugging a perfect stranger and thanking me for being a part of her class.

Of course we, the adults, all came out into the hallway to go down the slide at the Ron Clark Academy where all of the students from the classroom were at the bottom waiting for us singing and cheering us on as we got to the bottom of the slide.  As we emerged form the slide the children shook our hands and gave us a sticker that said we were "Slide Certified"

This experience has given me a new perspective on my own personal and professional life.  A kind of re-opening of my eyes to certain things and breathing some new life back into this routine which we all get in from time to time.

Ideas To Inspire Technology Greatness

Teachers ask me all the time for technology ideas on a wide variety of subject areas. Some days I can get 30 questions from 30 different teachers but they all might be asking the same sort of question. One day it might be questions on how to use Google Earth and the next it might be all Smartboard questions. It sure would be helpful to have list of easy ways that these tools can be used in the classroom.

Mark Warner has created a site that does just that. (The idea came from another teacher named Tom Barrett. He collaborated with over 100 teachers to get ideas on all these topics.) Using some Google Presentations teachers can see how various technologies can be used in the classroom. He has included presentations on a wide range of topics including Interactive Whiteboards, Netbooks, Twitter, Google Earth, Google Docs, Webcams, and more. There is also some really good information on curriculum topics like math, science, writing, art and music.

A few examples...

Maybe you have a webcam and need some more ideas on how to use it:




Or maybe Wordle is more your thing:





Or maybe you want to find something fun to do with Google Search:





Each presentation gives teachers several ideas on ways to use the specific technology in their classroom or ways technology can support the specific content area. The presentations are short and offer some really good ideas. I guarantee that you will learn at least one new way to do something in your classroom, if not more.

So head on over to Mark's Ideas To Inspire Website and achieve Technology Greatness!


Mark Warner's Idea's To Inspire