Technology in the Education Arena

TPDS – who are they?  They are “tech savvy” teachers who have agreed to help others in their school with technology.  TPDS is an acronymn for Technology Professional Development Specialists.  They are a great bunch of teachers and very helpful in our district.

I have been requested to put together a summer training for the TPDS in our district.  What to present took quite a bit of thought.  First, I went back to the Google on-line survey (using Google Docs) they filled out at the end of the year asking them what they would be interested in learning more about.  Almost every one of the responses noted that they would be interested in learning more about Presentations OnLine using tools such as Slideshare, BubbleShare, VoiceThread, Animoto – you get the picture. 

It just so happens that I was lucky enough to attend NECC this summer for the first time and had a FABULOUS time.  I attended a session entitled One Hour PowerPoint: A Strategy for Improving Presentations by David Jakes (http://jakes.editme.com/onehourppt) and Dean Shareski (http://ideasandthoughts.org/).  Check out Wesley Fryer’s excellent notes at http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2008/06/30/one-hour-powerpoint-a-strategy-for-improving-presentations-by-david-jakes/.  Yes, I thought the same thing – PowerPoint?  Isn’t that so old news?  Well, it also mentioned Visual Communication and Literacy, so I thought – why not give it a try!  Went with my boss and a colleague of mine.  We all loved the presentation and picked up some great info.  PowerPoint presentations can be quite fascinating if done correctly!

Some of the highlights of what we learned –

• Move away from text
• Presentations are Performances
• Dual Processing: Visual and Auditory
• Teach Students how to find Images
• Teach them about Intellectual Property
• Teach them Design
• Teach them to Sell a Message
• Color is Important
• Teach them to incorporate multimedia

David Jakes notes that it all starts with a bit of biology of the brain — http://strengthofweakties.org/?p=280 and how the brain works.  This ties together so well with the graduate course I took this summer entitled Brain-Based Learning.  So, my TPDS training started to come together.  I also thought it needs to be beneficial to all – elementary teachers to high school teachers in addition to satisfying those with varying skill levels.  Let us not forget what the ultimate product is – a student or teacher-created product which can reach many types of learners.

It is with this that I am focusing on “The Thrill of Presentations” for my training.  This title opens up so many doors – Slideshare, Bubbleshare, Voicethread, Animoto, WebSlides, One True Media, Slide, Flickr, Flickr Storm, Creative Commons.  I will be introducing the tool and giving them time to explore it online.  On my wiki, I put together information for each tool on where to sign up for the tool, where to get help, examples, and more. 

One of the two days I have to go over our new e-mail package.  Of course I will do this, but hopefully will quickly move into what I call “extras” to our Presentation training – TeacherTube, SchoolTube, Flip Video, and a couple great new tips on the latest version of SMARTBoard software.

OK, I know I have way too much here, but there are so many great tools out there, how could I just pick a few?  Hopefully, they can look at one tool a month and by the end of the school year, think of how many new tools they will have tried?

My Resources:

Wiki Page Listing Tools for “The Thrill of Presentations”

http://juliazanglcolby.wikispaces.com/Presentations+OnLine

Wiki Page Listing Tools on “Photo Management”

http://juliazanglcolby.wikispaces.com/PhotoManagement

Wiki Page Listing SMARTBoard Sites

http://juliazanglcolby.wikispaces.com/SMARTBoard

 To view the WebSlide I created which shows a screen shot of the Internet sites, visit http://www.diigo.com/list/jzcolby/pps-technology-summer-training

http://slides.diigo.com/list/jzcolby/pps-technology-summer-training