Success Is Messy: Nearpod Works To Perfection

Yesterday, I was reminded of how successful things happen.  Mr. Anderson attended a PLC day at Adlai Stevenson High School and noticed that the presenter engaged the audience with PearDeck.  Unfortunately, PearDeck comes with a price we are unable to pay.

When Mr. Anderson approached me about the concept, I initially thought that the presentation tool of questions in Google Slides would be an adequate solution.  We found this could be a tool, but being a single teacher in a classroom proved a little challenging to monitor those questions.  A teacher needs to toggle back and forth between the presentation and the question/answer window.

As we were talking, Nearpod came to my mind.  It quickly became clear that this was the perfect tool that would serve his Anatomy students in their learning experience.

• Upload a presentation from Powerpoint or Google Slides
• Upload images or PDFs
• Once a presentation is uploaded, add "activity cards", "polls", or "questions"
• No sign up required by the students.  Simply display the code that they enter into the Nearpod app. Quick, Simple!
• Teacher begins to present.  Immediately the presentation shows up on a student's device.
• When it's time for an activity or question, students interact on their iPad by writing, drawing, typing, highlighting
• Students share their creation back to the teacher
• Teacher discusses some responses by the students

Lectures are not always necessary, however when they are the correct delivery for the content, Nearpod became a great tool for our this teacher.

In a 30 minute discussion, Mr. Anderson and I did exactly what the right arrow above states.  We went around in circles, backwards at times, but eventually found the tool that serves him best for his content area at this time.

After his experience during the day, Mr. Anderson introduced the tool to his Biology team.  Teachers learning and then teaching teachers!  It was a great learning experience.

View The Images From Class

Flex Mod - Updated Large Group Lesson Plan & Presentation Ideas

Rethinking Presentations

Rethinking Presentations Part 1

Rethinking Presentations Part 2

Rethinking Presentations Part 3

Duarte - Resonate
Resonate - Free Multimedia Book

Duarte - SlideDocs

Slide:ology

Google Slides

Slide Carnival

Powerpoint

Powerpoint Templates

Haiku Deck  PCSD Examples

Images For Presentations

Photos For Class

ImageBase

Built In Questions
How many of you would an answer to this question?  Raise hand
How many of you would be willing to answer this question?

Engage Large Audiences
8 Ways To Engage Large Groups
Five Easy Tricks To Making Interactive Presentations

In Connection With: Large Group Instruction Planning

Introducing the Flex Mod Schedule To Students and the Community

As we progress to the flexible schedule for our high school in 2015-2016, our communication intensifies.  To do this, our art teacher, Mr. Sperduto created a tremendous infographic that will be displayed throughout our building, given to students, and distributed throughout our community.

In addition, I created a video with raw video footage provided by Mr. Manning and Mr. Mentink. The video was created with Final Cut Pro X, which is a Mac program I learned about at the Apple Distinguished Educator Institute in Austin in 2013.

Our principal, Mr. Matczak, completed a voice over of a Google presentation that Mrs. Mathys and Ms. Koch created.  The voice over was completed in Camtasia because the Google presentation was able to be screencasted.  Also, the editing features were perfect for cleaning up the voice over.

The Final Cut Pro X and voice over were combined using the Camtasia Program.  Worked perfectly.

Mystery Map - High School Human Geography

Map Race and Geoguessr are great tools for students to gain clues as to the place in the world that is being shown.  While this allows students and adults to get the experience, it doesn't allow for students to create their own place, clues, and game.

Enter our idea.

Mrs. Brylski and I have created a project in which students create five clues using Google Maps, Awesome Screencapture Chrome Extension, Google Presentations, Google Drive, and Customized Google Maps.

To begin I chose a place that I liked in the world.  I used the Google Street View version in Google maps.  I then used the Awesome Screencapture extension to gather five photos pertaining to the place of choice.  We are having the students create the pictures from easy to difficult.  In addition, students will be creating five additional clues to add to the pictures.  These include:

• HDI
• Population Pyramid
• Religion
• Ethnicity
• Folk Culture

If the links to these clues are provided without any revealing names of the places, the link can simply be added to the slide.  If the information has revealing information, the Screen Capture blurring option was used.  Once the images were clipped, the images were uploaded to Google Drive and made visible by the link.

Once the students create there slide show of clues, they will tell the teacher their place in the world.  The teacher will add a place mark on a customized Google map.  The students will create (probably their first) customized Google map for all of their answers from other student's presentations.

After the answers are revealed in the Master Mystery Map (only shown after the teacher receives the answers from students and their guesses of other students), students will use the Google maps tools to determine the proximity of their guess to the actual place.  The closer the guess, the greater the point total.

View The Example Mystery Map

View The Students Presenting and Guessing!



Impressive Creation By A Student!  She really worked to make it challenging!


Impact On Students:
Critical Thinking: Deciding easy to difficult clue choices will require some thought.
Creativity:  In creating my example, I wanted some help in the form of street signs and building signs that could give some clues.  Students will need to do this as well.  This will take some creativity to find and use certain pictures.

Explaining Blood Flow In Heart Using Google Slides

Mr. Anderson, our high school anatomy teacher, used Chromebooks and Google Slides for students to teach and understand the flow of blood through the heart.  The simplistic, but elegant presentation tools allowed for students to use drawing tools, shapes, and text boxes found in Google Slides to annotate images of the heart.  As Mr. Anderson states, "The tool (Google Slides) made it more visual to see the steps that occurred."

View Product


View Product


Impact On Students:
Creativity: Understanding the scope and sequence of the flow of blood through the heart doesn't need to be boring.  Students were given freedom to show this sequence with whatever images or annotations they desired.
Critical Thinking: Students needed to have enough words, but not too many on each slide to establish the needed information.  Students were also required to think through the entire process so that the flow of blood through the heart could be understood by people outside of the classroom.

Google Presentation To Explain Everything

For students to discuss a Google Presentation that was created on a computer/Chromebook, we used Explain Everything to annotate and/or record audio notes to enhance the presentation.

Process:

• Create Google Presentation on Chromebook/Laptop
• On iPad, Use Google Drive App
• Find Presentation
• Touch i button for information
• Open in -->
• Explain Everything

Every Google Presentation slide will be placed on a separate Explain Everything slide.

Begin to enhance the presentation with audio and visual cues.

View the Process

Impact On Students:
Critical Thinking:  Creating a slideshow is one thing, however, annotating and recording audio to explain aspects in detail takes script writing and planning.

Merge SMART notebook and Google Presentation

If you have SMART notebook files with text/images and you want to combine this with a Google Presentation, there is a small process that will make this work.

Remember, you can write on a Google presentation by following these steps.

Video Link

Writing On A Google Presentation Using SMART Tools...In 20 Seconds

Video Link

Resizing an iPhone/iPad Picture For Use In Google Presentation

A student needed to upload pictures from her iPhone to a Google Presentation.  She received an error message when attempting to do this as Google Presentation was stating that only 2000 x 2000 pictures were accepted.

To alleviate this situation, we used PicMonkey.com to easily upload her pictures from her iPhone, resize them, download them to her network drive, and insert them into her Google Presentation.

PicMonkey doesn't require a username and password!

Video Link of Student Using PicMonkey

How I embedded a Google Drive video to my blog!  Our iPads are on a network in which YouTube is blocked.  Therefore, I can't create videos on my iPad and conveniently share them to YouTube.  Using Google Drive as the host of the video still allows me to make the video look great on a my blog.

Video Link

Google Presentations For Student "Life Choices" Choose Your Own Adventure

This was truly a collaborative effort between staff members in our district.

Last April, Mrs. Hocking asked me how to digitize a "choose your adventure" experience with sixth graders. After it was a great success, I blogged about it.  Some time later, Ms. Barszcz inquired to me about resources for a "life choices" experience that our middle school physical education/health teachers wanted our students to experience.  I immediately thought of the "choose your own adventure" experience with Google Presentations.

It has taken a great deal of planning by Ms. Barszcz, but the final products are outstanding!
*Material may be sensitive, but is in our health curriculum.

Information Provided To Students

Presentation Link


Presentation Link

**If you are a tech coach and haven't started making your teachers rock stars by blogging or video taping them integrating technology, consider promoting them so as to move your entire staff forward!

Lunch N' Learn: Rethinking Slides Using Google Presentations

Today's part three of three Lunch N' Learns focuses on Google Presentations as a tool that can eliminate the noise and focus the signal on staff presentations.

Many teachers have used the Effective Google Presentation Tips for Students prior to having students create presentations.  Consider looking at these prior to making your next Google Presentation.

• Five Words On A Slide
• Tools > Research > All Google Features On Side Of Presentation
• Insert YouTube Clip
• Snipping Tool To Get Images
• Text Box > Fonts
• Arrows > Shapes > Lines
• Single Most Important Piece of Advice --Stop The Bullet Point Madness

Effective Google Presentations Consider Showing To Students

Word Focus is critical!  Do NOT put what you say on the screen.  Eliminate ALL the words so that people will listen to your passion and energy instead of reading your words.

Inserting An Image Consider rethinking the way images are presented to your students.


Google Presentations With Speaker Notes By making a few simple clicks, you will never miss an important point, while your audience views a Focused Message!

Effective Examples

• 10 Tips To Present ALL CAN BE DONE IN GOOGLE PRESENTATION
• Clear Pictures, Clear Words, Signal
• Simple, Small Transition, One Image, Small Amount Of Words
• Social Studies Old Italy Slide New Italy Slide New Way
• 450 Ways To Make Google Presentations Pop
• Making Your Presentation Powerful

I am thankful for the many teachers who have shared their "this is my new presentation because of Lunch N' Learn" See how one teacher has changed her presentations.  She also commented, "students do listen more when they are not racing to write down all the words on my presentation slides."

Google Slides Cheat Sheet

3 of 3 Part Series
Part 2
Part 1

*Inspiration For Lessons - Resonate Nancy Duarte
*Resonate Is Now Available Free Online
*Presentation Design Tips - Better Public Speaking With Great Slides
*5 Non-Negotiables - For PD

Google Presentations Screen Options...In 20 Seconds

Video Link
...In 20 Seconds Playlist

Lunch N' Learn: Rethinking Presentations

With the dissolving of SlideRocket, it is a great time to rethink how classroom content presentations are created.  More importantly, how do a teacher's presentations move the audience (students) to truly provide that "WAIT! WHAT?" (Meyer, 2013) thought!



Notes are included with this presentation.  To enable them, click on the gears and open in speaker notes.

Open Presentation In New Window

1 of a 3 Part Series
Part 2
Part 3

Informational Text Why, Resources, and Administration Using Video

Teacher Collaboration day consisted of fifteen minutes of the why informational text should be implemented throughout the content areas.  We also provided teachers with resources and methods for saving resources.

It was also the first time that our administrative staff conducted one minute videos to provide information to staff instead of meeting as a large group.



Presentation Link

Google Presentation Choose Your Adventure Student Creation

As stated previously on this blog, Google Presentations are a great tool for students to create a "Choose Your Own Adventure".  Below is an example...

Effective Google Presentations Tips For Students

Our high school geography students are completing "The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Project" based on the eight goals set forth by the United Nations.  While the students know about Google Presentations, they may not be aware of several tips and tricks to make an effective presentation.

Effective Ideas In 7 Minutes:

• Five Words On A Slide
• Tools > Research > All Google Features On Side Of Presentation
• Insert YouTube Clip
• Snipping Tool To Get Images
• Text Box > Fonts
• Arrows > Shapes > Lines
• Single Most Important Piece of Advice - NO MORE BULLET POINTS

The specific details of the project are below...

Movenote Add Video To A Google Drive Creation

Movenote is a quick way to add video/audio to a Google Drive document, including Docs, Presentations, & Spreadsheets.  The Movenote can be an iPad app as well.  Sharing options exist!

Simply find the Movenote app in the Chrome Store, connect to your Google Account, and start adding valuable content to your documents.  Need a teacher example?

More Movenote Information
Send Movenote Via Gmail Feature



Example


iOS App Example Once published, viewers can reply via text or video.  Great for class discussion!

Computer How To Video

Voice Comments In Google Docs and Presentations

Through @rmbyrne I learned about a great video tutorial of Voice Comments in Google Documents.

This got me thinking, "Can Voice Comments be used with any other Google tools?"

Answer: "Yes, in Google Presentations."

View The Google Documents Tutorial:


View Free Tech 4 Teachers Blog Post: 

See the Google Presentations Tutorial that I created:

Google Presentation For Choose Your Own Adventure

After discussion with Mrs. Hocking, a sixth grade teacher, we decided that Google Presentation would be the best tool for students to create a "Choose Your Own Adventure".

Best because...

• We are a Google Apps For Education School
• No age minimum
• Students know their log in and password
• Students are familiar with Google Docs/Presentation tools
• Collaboration Options
• Sharing Options

Most important feature "Create Links For Choose Your Own Adventures"...In 20 Seconds

See complete details of how a "Choose Your Own Adventure" can be created.

Flow Chart & Student Expectations

Mrs. Hocking explains why Google Presentation is easy to work with...

View the "Choose Your Own Adventure" Example Presentation

On iPad?  GET PRESENTATION

Consider using this technique during your next staff development option.  I used this with teachers in August of 2012.  
Read written directions!

@edtechlori shared her resources for a "Choose Your Own Adventure"  Fantastic!

Google Presentations Writing On Them Using SMARTboard...In 20 Seconds