Thing 5: Presentation Tools (updated for 2017/18)

• Thing 5: Presentation Tools  (updated for 2017/18)

    Having been an avid fan and user of Prezi for several years, I was extremely disappointed when the Prezi platform totally changed and became “Prezi Next”. This new version is not as user friendly and has many glitches.  Up until this change I taught Prezi in 6th grade and then did a refresher on it with our 8th grade ELA students for a collaborative project I did with that teacher. Last week she asked me to get ready to do that lesson again, and sadly I’m in need of a new presentation tool.

    Lucky for me I am ready to start my next “thing” so to the list I went, looking for an activity that would be give me ideas for new presentation tools to try. I wasn’t let down and was so excited to see this “Thing 5: Presentation Tools (updated for 2017/18)”. I browsed through the list of resources and decided to start with Powerpoint Alternatives since this was basically what I was looking for.

I was already familiar with Adobe Spark (LOVE it) but was looking for more of a Google Slide replacement presentation format. I scrolled through the list looking for student-friendly, free options. The first one I chose to explore further was Projeqt since it sounded perfect. Sadly I was met with the following message when trying to experiment with it: Attention to the Projeqt community: It has been a pleasure to have you as part of our Projeqt community - thank you for your support. We are sad to say we are concluding the ability to create new Projeqt presentations and sign-up for new accounts. In addition to this, we’re also ending support for work done/kept on Projeqt asa platform. Should you have any urgent questions, please contact us. So my quest to find a new presentation tool continued.

HaikuDeck is fee-based, so that was quickly ruled out. Next up was Buncee. The homepage description sounded promising, so I clicked on the “For Schools” tab to learn more, but wasn’t motivated to go beyond at that point. I thought Presentation Zen was going to be a tool for presenting, but seem to have been mistaken; it seems to be more like a philosophy or presentation style, so my search for a Prezi replacement continued! The Cool Tools Wiki Site seemed like a good next step, but upon clicking the link I was immediately alerted by the following message across the top of the screen: It's time for us to say farewell… Regretfully, we've made the tough decision to close Wikispaces. Find out why, and what will happen, here . Really felt like I was batting zero on this “thing”! Thankfully the final article mentioned the Canva presentation tool. I was able to immediately sign in with Google and begin creating.

LEARNING ACTIVITY

    The 8th grade ELA teacher recently asked me to collaborate with her on a Ted Talk project. The first phase is a brush-up on research tools, and the second step is assistance with presentation software. In the past we’ve done Prezi, but due to the problems I mentioned earlier, I decided to introduce students to Canva and use that as their presentation’s visual component. To learn how to better use Canva, I created the following practice project for my learning activity: https://www.canva.com/design/DACvY-sZOZE/gq1VtG5I85bYerrW9FlEmA/view?website

I love how students can easily sign in with their Google accounts and get right to work. No fees, no hidden registration steps or verifications needed. It was simple and easy to figure out and I was able to complete the above practice project in about an hour. I will actually use this Canva with the students to introduce the presentation tool.

    I’m so happy to have found a replacement for Prezi since I really want students to be challenged with new Web 2.0 technologies and presentation tools. Google Slides is becoming too common - Canva will help spice up presentations with something new. Thanks for another great “thing”!

Thing 37 Green Screen Fun

Thing 37 Green Screen Fun

I was very excited to see this thing. I have a new green screen media room in my library media center this year, and have been trying to come up with ideas for how to use it. This “thing” came at the perfect time as I’m starting with a new class for second semester.  Polly’s example with her critters looking at the northern lights was adorable, and made greenscreening sound easy! I decided to jump in.

    The first thing to do was to figure out which of the recommended apps / tools could be used on the student MacBooks that my students have access to. I logged in to one of the laptops as a student and began experimenting. I first checked Do Ink, but sadly it said it was only compatible with iPhone and iPads. (Although I may still introduce it to my son at home since he has an iPad he could try it on.) And the same held true for WeVideo.

    I decided to see what ideas there were in “You don’t need a green screen app” section, hoping I would find some MacBook friendly ideas. I started by reading the article Free & Easy Green Screen Editing – How to Make Transparent Backgrounds to see what that was all about. I was super excited to see that this worked on my MacBooks!  I watched the tutorial and practiced using the “Instant Alpha” feature in Pages and Google Drawings. So easy!! The tutorial videos were so easy to follow. I plan to use this with my 6th grade classes ASAP - they are going to love it! The first video I watched at https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=248&v=YwZUnIzKSxw showed how to remove the background using the instant alpha tool. The video tutorial at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_USxy-dwv8 explains in detail how to add backgrounds and edit the images.  Layering is also explained and everything is super simple. I’m not a photoshop person, so knowing how to do this with Pages & Google Drawings is opening up new worlds for me and what I can use my green screen for with my students. So excited!

    LEARNING ACTIVITY

Now that I knew how to use the Instant Alpha tool with Pages on my Mac, I wanted to test out how to use these features on my Dell computer. I watched the tutorial for Chromebooks and learned that Lunapic also works on my Dell desktop. I took a photo of a student who happened to be in the library at the time in front of my green screen, and followed the steps in the tutorial to successfully place her in the center of an M&M candy valentine heart. Here’s the image I created for my learning activity:

    I can’t wait to introduce this to my students, and plan to do so during our current author study project. They can greenscreen images of the book covers or other author-related pictures and use them as part of their media projects. I also loved the idea shared by Nicole Rosen for putting the students’ faces onto their favorite book covers! I might do that, too! Thanks for another awesome “thing”!