Showing posts with label presentation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presentation. Show all posts

Monday, February 18, 2013

Presentation and Creation Apps

With the growth of iPads in the classrooms, I decided to share some of my favorite apps for creation and presentation. Each app has its own distinct features so choose the app that best fits your teaching style. Be sure to investigate all eight apps. They all work great in the classroom.

9Slides (free)
With 9Slides import your Microsoft PowerPoint, Adobe PDF presentations from SlideShare, Google-Drive, Dropbox or BOX, record your video delivering the presentation and publish it online for your online audience. Also access 9Slides via its website. The website and app sync together plus you can create on the app.
Features:
☆ Cloud-based solution
☆ View on most browsers
☆ Password protect available with upgrade
☆ Add video and audio commentary directly from iPad
☆ Import from Microsoft PowerPoint or Adobe presentations from SlideShare, Dropbox, Google, or Box

Explain Everything ($2.99)
Explain Everything is an easy-to-use design, screencasting, and interactive whiteboard tool that lets you annotate, animate, narrate, import, and export almost anything to and from almost anywhere. Take presentations to the next level with students. Click here for a guide for using Explain Everything.

Features:
☆ Create slides, draw in any color, add shapes, add text, and use a laser pointer.
☆ Rotate, move, scale, copy, paste, clone, and lock any object added to the stage.
☆ Add new or existing photos and videos.
☆ Import PDF, PPT, DOC, XLS, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, and RTF files from Evernote, Dropbox, Box, GDrive, WebDAV, Email, iTunes, and any app that allows you to open these files types using "Open In…"

Educreations (free)
Educreations is a recordable interactive whiteboard that captures your voice and handwriting to produce amazing video lessons that you can share online. Students and colleagues can replay your lessons in any web browser, or from within our app on their iPads.

Features:
☆ Record and replay your voice, handwriting and drawings
☆ Add text to any page
☆ Add photos from the iPad camera, Photo Albums, Dropbox or the Web
☆ Animate images by dragging them around while recording
☆ Pause and resume recording anytime
☆ Create multiple whiteboard pages
☆ Undo and redo your actions
☆ Create a free account on Educreations website and choose who can view your lessons
☆ Share your lessons via email, Facebook and Twitter
☆ Embed your lessons on your blog or website

ShowMe (free)
ShowMe allows you to record voice-over whiteboard tutorials and share them online. Turn your iPad into your personal interactive whiteboard! Drop in images onto the whiteboard, make your ShowMe as long or as short as it needs to be, and record as many ShowMe’s as you want.

Features: 
☆ Voice-record
☆ Multiple brush colors
☆ Pause and erase
☆ Import pictures from your photo library, built-in camera, or web image search
☆ Unlimited lesson length
☆ Free to upload and share your recordings with friends
☆ Easy embedding for sharing anywhere

Variety of Uses:
☆ Grade student work with commentary explaining the reasoning behind their performance
☆ Easily explain a range of topics from math to chemistry to music theory to basket weaving.
☆ Use ShowMe as an interactive whiteboard substitute
☆ Diagram offensive and defensive strategies for sports

Appser for Google Docs (free)
With Appser for Google Docs run the full, original, PC version of Google Docs™ app on your iPad. Now, integrated with Presentation Note - the top app for presenting directly from the iPad. Edit documents, presentations and even spreadsheets – a complete office suite to suit your mobile productivity needs.

Features:
☆ Connect the iPad to an external screen for a near PC experience
☆ State-of-the-art accuracy when clicking even on the tiniest icons
☆ Resize and move objects with one finger
☆ Scroll up and down with two fingers
☆ Integrated with Presentation Note, for a great live presentation experience

Nearpod (free)
The Nearpod platform combines presentation, collaboration, and real-time assessment tools into one integrated solution. Teachers use Nearpod to share content with their students and to manage the flow of the lecture. Students use Nearpod on their iOS devices to receive content and to participate in engaging and collaboration activities.

Features:
☆ One single app for both teachers and students. Teachers sign in with their credentials and students using teacher provided PIN for each class.
☆ Teachers log in to Nearpod website to create multimedia presentations with interactive features such as quizzes, videos, polls, drawing tools, and more.
☆ Teachers can see students’ answers in real time on the Nearpod app.
☆ Teachers can log in to Nearpod website to access post-session data and obtain detailed activity reports.

AirSketch ($9.99)
With AirSketch turn your iPad into a wireless whiteboard! Annotate PDF documents and images live. Just fire up Air Sketch on the iPad and open the specified URL from any  browser on the local network. Your photos and drawings show up natively in the browser. There's no additional client software to install, or services to subscribe to.

Features:
☆ Real-time sketching to your browser
☆ Open PDF documents from Mail or other Apps in Air Sketch to wirelessly annotate
☆ 5 drawing tools: Pencil, pen, marker, brush, and highlighter
☆ Fluidly zoom and pan using 2 fingers to edit your sketches
☆ Email your sketches as PDF or images

Doceri (free app - $30 site license)
Combining screencasting, desktop control, and an interactive whiteboard in one app, you’ll never have to turn your back to the class or audience again. Doceri does it all! This definitely is my new favorite app for presenting material. Download the Doceri Desktop for your Mac or PC by clicking here.

Features:
☆ CREATE hand written or hand drawn Doceri projects on your iPad
☆ CONTROL a computer through your iPad.
☆ PRESENT anything from your Mac or PC connected to a projector, using Doceri’s desktop software.
☆ SHARE still image captures, multi-page PDFs or audio/video screencasts via email, iTunes, YouTube or Facebook.

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Tired of PowerPoint? Try Prezi!

Death by PowerPoint
Try Prezi



There are times we all have a need to communicate. Research shows that including a visual when trying to communicate aides in the comprehension and retention of the information, especially when color and graphics are involved. As teachers, we have competition for our students' minds. Today’s students are inundated with visuals and videos that seize their attention and engross their minds. What do we do? [Insert PowerPoint.] We try to communicate using a traditional, linear, outline type presentation tool. That is a first step. If you are ready to try another tool, try Prezi. Click on the link below to view an introduction to Prezi. If you are interested in a training session, sign up in Eduphoria Workshop to attend a session on June 7, 2012 to learn this free, easy tool! Follow @Prezi_edu on Twitter to learn more each day.




Tip of the Week
Apps in Education
This is a site where many educators have combed through the plethora of apps available for all content areas and listed the best and most effective apps.



Monday, December 12, 2011

At Home during the Holidays

At home activity during the Holiday break...
Watch TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson 
TED talks website states that Sir Ken Robinson is a "creativity expert...that challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence." His famous speech has been animated by RSA. You Tube notes that 6,240,593 people have viewed this version of his speech.

As you listen to this speech, think about how you learn new things best. 
                           

Website of the Week:
Conversations in the Cloud
Kids today prefer to learn online. VoiceThread allows for group conversations. These conversations are collected (in the "cloud," which means on the internet) and shared in one place from anywhere in the world. All with no software to install. "A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too." Many teachers and students are using VoiceThread across the country. 


Create an account and click on MyVoice. Explore the site. Ask your campus instructional technology specialists for assistance! Here is a great wiki with VoiceThread resources: http://technologyintegrationshthornt.pbworks.com/w/page/20286944/Voice%20Thread

iPhone Tip of the Week: Double Tap Shift for Caps Lock


I have had an iPhone since 2008 and did not know this trick until I was perusing a blog. 
In order to have Caps Lock, all you have to do is double tap shift. However, you must enable it. Go to "Settings > General; Keyboard; Enable Caps Lock." Then, double-tap the shift key to type in capitals. 

If you would like more iPhone tips, see the following site: http://iphone.appstorm.net/how-to/30-super-secret-iphone-features-and-shortcuts/

Monday, November 7, 2011

Around the World...in One Class Period

What is a Virtual Field Trip?

Take your students to the TajMahal, the Smithsonian,the Tower of London, even Mars all in one class period! It's easy to create interactive web based experiences that spark student interest and motivate learning with virtual fieldtrips!
A virtual field trip is an interactive online adventure that guides students through an exploration of places, time, themes, and content. Virtual fieldtrips offer students a chance to go to places they would't be able to go to otherwise. You can be their guide or let the students guide themselves.



Advantages of Virtual Exploration
  • Virtual field trips are the next best thing to being there and actually have some advantages over the traditional on site field trip.
  • Virtual field trips are free and easy to plan. No permission slips. No transportation arrangements needed.
  • Virtual field trips offer lots of opportunities to explore with the class using the intearactive white board or students can explore on their own at their own pace.
  • The field trip never ends. Students can revisit as much as they want to review or simply explore some more.
Helpful Hints and Tips
Try one for yourself! Click here to take a panoramic interactive tour of the Smithsonian. Think you are ready to create your own? Here are some tips to help you get started.

  1. Think first, then plan. What is the purpose of your trip and what do you want students to gain from it?
  2. Setting up your first virtual field trip takes time, just like a traditional field trip would. So plan ahead. See your instructional technology specialist for assistance.
  3. Search the internet for pre-made virtual field trips to get ideas. Maybe even use one you find. Here is a great site with premade virtual trips by topic that you can use tomorrow
  4. Check those sites! Make sure you preview your field trip to ensure that the sites are appropriate for your students.
  5. Take the trip yourself first to make sure all links and pages are working before you go.
  6. Get the students involved! As an assignment, let groups of students create their own virtual field trips to share with the class. Save these trips so you can use them in the future. The students will love it.
Want to learn more? Then sign up now for Oh the Places You'll Go webinar, presented Wednesday, Nov. 9 beginning at 8:00 p.m. You'll learn how to create your own trip and will get tons of resources and 1.5 hours of staff development credit! Click here to register.

Website of the Week:Spicynodes
Spicynodes is a free website which allows you to create interactive mind maps as well as interactive journeys through the web. It's easy, fun, and visually appealing. It is interactive and makes a great alternative to lectures and notes. Students can click their way through the information you chose for them or they can create their own spicynodes to show what they have learned. (This would make a great start for a virtual field trip, too!)

Tip of the Week: Outlook Alerts-Be Careful!
If you are using your laptop (or your desktop) as your presentation station, remember to close Outlook before you start teaching. If you have desktop alerts turned on, then email notifications will appear on your board over your flipchart or presentation for all to see!  To keep this from happening, use your teacher workstation to check email. To turn on or off desktop alerts in Outlook, go to File, Options, MAIL, Message Arrival, then Desktop Alert Settings. Uncheck the box which says "Display Desktop Alert."

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

VoiceThread: The Perfect Online Class Collaboration Tool

Extend your classroom online!
Your students spend countless hours online surfing the internet, posting and following others on Twitter, or updating their Facebook statuses. Wouldn't it be nice to have those students spend some of that time on your class assignments? With VoiceThread, you can engage the "digital natives" in your classroom in an online, collaborative learning adventure. It's easy and FUN!

VoiceThread is an online interactive tool  that allows you and your students to collaborate and share information using images, documents, videos and more. Everyone can comment and collaborate with voice, text, audio and even video. You can post your VoiceThread on your website or save it to an MP3 or DVD or provide a direct link.  More about VoiceThread...

Don't worry! There are plenty of ideas and resources  to help you start using this tool.  As always, your Instructional Technology Specialist is there to help you too.



Convert Powerpoint To Images
Did you know that you can convert PowerPoint slides to images to use in other applications? It's easy to do. Just open your PowerPoint, select File, Save As and select the jpg option as your file type. All the slides you choose to convert become images to be used in other applications.

Fill in any PDF Form onYour Computer
FillAnyPDF.com is a website that allows you to upload any PDF form to make it interactive so you can fill in the blanks. No software is required and it's free. There is a paid version as well. If you must fill out a form, you will find that this site is a time-saving resource.