A fifth grade teacher working on Westward Expansion with her students wanted them to do some research and present their findings. I began Thing 5 to find a presentation tool that might work for that project. First I took a look at Emaze which looked like it would be great as it had a 3D feature that I thought students would really enjoy. Unfortunately, each time I tried to begin a presentation I would get an error message. After a few tries I gave up. Before I left Emaze completely I did take a look at "emazifying" a power point presentation. The first one I tried showed it was almost finished and then dumped me back at the homepage without completing. The second one worked and it was really cool how my slides now dropped and slid in, but I don't normally create power point presentations so would not find this feature all that useful.
Next I tried Canva. I chose a template that seemed it would go well with the Westward Expansion theme. I began to enter info to give it a try, but found that getting rid of the preset info in each slide to change it to my info was kind of a pain. This is all I completed before moving on. I really liked the look of the presentation, but didn't like having to delete all the info before entering mine.
https://www.canva.com/design/DACTzJjdD_M/share?role=EDITOR&token=Z5VxKUbAt-pT-RvWbSUL5A&utm_content=DACTzJjdD_M&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton
At this point it was coming up on the day I had to have a presentation tool ready to share with students so decided to use Google Slides. Students had used it once before this year with their teacher, but were unfamiliar with the Explore tool that is now available. I was able to introduce them to it and with that tool they were able to find other research information and add images that have citation info linked to them already.
This is that example that I shared with students:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1l_cKG0vRWLqZgzJz_HHQ1w55EHuFKl-F7kImIJ6QoWg/edit#slide=id.p
Last month I used Kahoot to review Battle of the Books information with students. I did not create my own Kahoots, but rather used some that were already available. The kids loved it and really enjoyed our review sessions. I do find that by using others' pre-made Kahoots I save time, but run into spelling mistakes and several questions with the same author or book title as an answer in a row. Next year when I only have to read one book rather than all ten I will take the time to create my own quizzes.
During this Thing I also took a look at Tellagami. It looked really cool. I especially loved the Esperanza Rising book talk example. It looks like with this tool the EDU version is a paid subscription. In order to use it with students I would need to add the app to ipads. This would limit the students I'd be able to utilize it with as our school only has ipads in grades K-3. I might consider creating a few book talks of my own to add to our library website.
I took a quick look at Buncee and Knovio, but I get so many emails already that I didn't want to create accounts and add to those emailing me! I also looked at the 6 Reasons Why... and found the Photos for Class suggestion. It's always great to find another spot for students to find pictures to use for their projects and presentations.
Finally, I've had a couple of teachers ask lately how to find a book in the library. Sometimes I'm at the high school and an elementary teacher can't wait for me to get there to grab a book for them. I created a screencast-o-matic to show them how to use the spine label to locate a book. The sound quality isn't great as my microphone wouldn't work properly so you can hear key strokes when I'm typing the titles into the search bar. When I have a few minutes I will re-record for better quality.
http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cbfUrXXb7i
This was another fun "Thing" to do! I wish I had more time to spend on each of these, but always feel I've learned and accomplished something at the end of each exploration. :)
Next I tried Canva. I chose a template that seemed it would go well with the Westward Expansion theme. I began to enter info to give it a try, but found that getting rid of the preset info in each slide to change it to my info was kind of a pain. This is all I completed before moving on. I really liked the look of the presentation, but didn't like having to delete all the info before entering mine.
https://www.canva.com/design/DACTzJjdD_M/share?role=EDITOR&token=Z5VxKUbAt-pT-RvWbSUL5A&utm_content=DACTzJjdD_M&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=sharebutton
At this point it was coming up on the day I had to have a presentation tool ready to share with students so decided to use Google Slides. Students had used it once before this year with their teacher, but were unfamiliar with the Explore tool that is now available. I was able to introduce them to it and with that tool they were able to find other research information and add images that have citation info linked to them already.
This is that example that I shared with students:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1l_cKG0vRWLqZgzJz_HHQ1w55EHuFKl-F7kImIJ6QoWg/edit#slide=id.p
Last month I used Kahoot to review Battle of the Books information with students. I did not create my own Kahoots, but rather used some that were already available. The kids loved it and really enjoyed our review sessions. I do find that by using others' pre-made Kahoots I save time, but run into spelling mistakes and several questions with the same author or book title as an answer in a row. Next year when I only have to read one book rather than all ten I will take the time to create my own quizzes.
During this Thing I also took a look at Tellagami. It looked really cool. I especially loved the Esperanza Rising book talk example. It looks like with this tool the EDU version is a paid subscription. In order to use it with students I would need to add the app to ipads. This would limit the students I'd be able to utilize it with as our school only has ipads in grades K-3. I might consider creating a few book talks of my own to add to our library website.
I took a quick look at Buncee and Knovio, but I get so many emails already that I didn't want to create accounts and add to those emailing me! I also looked at the 6 Reasons Why... and found the Photos for Class suggestion. It's always great to find another spot for students to find pictures to use for their projects and presentations.
Finally, I've had a couple of teachers ask lately how to find a book in the library. Sometimes I'm at the high school and an elementary teacher can't wait for me to get there to grab a book for them. I created a screencast-o-matic to show them how to use the spine label to locate a book. The sound quality isn't great as my microphone wouldn't work properly so you can hear key strokes when I'm typing the titles into the search bar. When I have a few minutes I will re-record for better quality.
http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cbfUrXXb7i
This was another fun "Thing" to do! I wish I had more time to spend on each of these, but always feel I've learned and accomplished something at the end of each exploration. :)
Wow! You did so much for this lesson! Great work. Sorry you had some trouble with a few of the tools. I wonder if the emaze site requires something like flash or maybe something is locked down on your school computer? That happens a lot. Great you were able to do what you needed with Google Slides, such a great tool. If you get a chance over the summer, do try Buncee, many people are raving about how good it is.
ReplyDelete