How to Use Prezis

Jason van Cassell is doing an in-service for social studies teachers tomorrow on how to use Prezi.  Prezis are a cool alternative to PowerPoints.  I like them best as they force the creator to think about a more enticing PowerPoint that can add items such as video, documents, pdfs, pictures and do some interesting maneuvers. Above is a short introductory tutorial and here are others to do more advanced things such as importing from a PowerPoint and creating a Prezi collaboratively.

Here is Jason's how-to e-sheet on creating a Prezi.  Here is one on how to upload a PowerPoint into it and finally here is how to register for a Prezi. 

Prezi's New Feature

Perhaps capitalizing on the growing popularity of the +1 button on Google, Prezi has made it easier (and it was fairly easy to begin with) to create a Prezi as they too have a "+" button to add in the new features in your presentations.  Here is what I have posted in the past on Prezi.  

Prezi Adds Live Collaboration to its Presentations
Prezi lets you build a multidimensional PowerPoint all on one slide so that you merely need to move the screen up, down, left, right, etc. Here is a student presentation of the Constitutional Convention that includes, pictures, video, graphics, links and even a worksheet all on one slide. Press the arrow to go to each part. Above is a video describing how you can create a Prezi PowerPoint with other people on other computers anywhere in the world at the same time - much as you can do with Google Docs.

A Student's Constitutional Convention on Prezi

Creating the Constitution on Prezi

I am starting up a new class of integrating technology into the classroom (there is still some room if you are a FCPS teacher "Enhancing the Use of Technology in the Social Studies Classroom") and one of the things they will be learning is how to make a Prezi.  Above is a student's work which I found on one of my visitor's webpage - thanks Billy Shulhman. 

iCivics

What is iCivics? on Prezi

This is a site that started last year.  The pictures might draw in civics teachers (ie middle schoolers) more than high schools), but it presents some great games to learn about civics.  The main emphasis is on courts (the site is the inspiration of Sandra Day O'Connor).  Above is a Prezi on it.  If you have never checked out a Prezi, that alone is worth looking at (for high or middle school). 

Prezi

Above is a great show of the power of Prezi.  Click on the arrow a few times and you will see how it works.  Also, when you get to a youtube video, let is sit a second and you will see that the video will begin (or if it doesn't, click the start button on the video).  You can go here to see a larger version. 

How and When to Flip the Classroom

The Flipped Classroom on Prezi

Frank and I are presenting to the high school social studies chairs today on when you might want to use a flipped classroom and how to create the screencast for it.

Above are the easy directions on how to create a screencast using Screencastomatic which is free and does not require you to have a login/password.  You will need a Youtube account (comes with your gmail) into which you can place it.

The top video and the Prezi explains when, how and why to integrate the flipped classroom into your repertoire.   

How To Set Up A Flipped Classroom

The Flipped Classroom on Prezi

I am putting together a list of sites for help with flipping the classroom and my thoughts (and will soon elicit those of some of my fellow bloggers).   One of the places I found came from the Digital Sandbox which created the very thoughtful Prezi above as well as this page which has everything you need to start a flipped classroom - even how to use Screencastomatic. 

Drawings in Prezi

I have done a few posts of Prezi before, but today they announced that they have added a bunch of different drawings (triangles, squares, etc.) to the different things you can add to a presentation.  Above is a short video on it.

Prezi and Bloom's

Here is a great way to get teachers to think of all the levels of Bloom's taxonomy and a super example of how you can use Prezi.

Prezi

This is the best teacher Prezi presentation I have seen yet.  The only change I would make is instead of just having a picture of Youtube (as you will see on it), I would have an actual video embedded which you can do.  Definitely take two minutes and go through this presentation to see how you can enhance your PowerPoints. 

Great Collection of Web Tools for Students

This is a very nice collection of webpage tools all nice and neat in one place. It includes Fakebook (which I have commented on before), Glogster, Jeopardy, Doink (for creating animations), Artpad, Fotoflexer (which allows you to edit images online), Prezi (a cooler way to present than PowerPoint), Storybird (which allows you to make short books online), Youpublisher (where you can make your pfds into little booklets that have page turning), Voicethread (where you have have animated slides and make them with people in different locations), Wordle and several other items. Soon I will be doing more in depth items on several of these. 

Another alternative to PowerPoint

This might be the coolest presentation package that I've seen yet.

I have already blogged my thoughts about this topic on the US History Teachers Blog.  If you want to stick with your existing PowerPoint presentations, you can make them interactive by uploading them to nearpod and then your students can watch them on their devices and respond to questions that you embed.

If you want alternatives to PowerPoint entirely, you can make presentations with either prezi or emaze.

But this presentation package was entirely new to me.  It's called PowToon.  PowToon's banner says that "It's free and it's awesome."  I concur as to both.

PowToon makes animated videos and presentations.  I could write paragraphs describing what it does but it would be much better for you to see two short examples.  Both were created with PowToon.

Want more more encouragement about PowToon's awesomeness?  PowToon was named one of the best websites for teaching and learning by the American Association of School Librarians in 2014.  Here's what they said:

Powtoon is ideal for those seeking a nice alternative to more traditional presentation tools. Simple to use, it makes creating engaging, interesting, and exciting animated videos extremely easy. Users can create and show presentations straight from the Powtoon site, or opt for the export to Youtube option, or even download a MP4 video format for use offline.

PowToon has a set of tutorials on its QuickStart Guide page.  I also like this tutorial (6:55).

The PowToon animations are so cool that I will be assigning them to my students to use.  Why should I have all the fun?

Do You Want to Take My Technology Integration Course?

If you work in Fairfax County, VA, you can take my course this fall called "Enhancing the Use of Technology in the High School Social Studies Classroom."   You can sign up for it in MyPLT.  Simply type in "social studies" into the search engine and it will be the first one that pops up.  Classes will be on Tuesday from 430 to 730 at Woodson HS from Sept 27 - Dec 6.

The course will be designed to go at your pace meaning if you need to go slower, that will be fine and if you are a quick learner of technology, you will be able to do that too.  We will go through a variety of things such as Prezi and Glogster, using Google Docs in the classroom, making blogs, delicious, Poll Everywhere, how to build a webquest, how to integrate our new e-books into your lesson plans.  In the end people will end up with one or two lesson plans where they can use all the items we have learned.  

Teaching 2011 Style - Technology Integration

Two months ago one of my colleagues, Monte Bourjaily (AP US), and I were talking about what to do after the AP exam.  We both had to balance some local requirements (state exam for juniors and state/local govt requirements for seniors + FLE for both of us).  We were determined,though, to have a joint project that would be both content focused on government (since all of Monte's kids are taking government next fall) and would be completely digital in its presentation.  I insisted on the latter since it's obviously my thing, but also so I could watch from FL while I was grading the AP exam.  Monte had three AP US classes who joined my two AP Govt classes.  While two of our classes met at the same time of the day, one did not and even some in our same periods wanted to work with ones in other times, so going digital allowed for grouping across periods and days!  We created our assignment in Google Docs since we kept thinking of new ideas and resources and didn't want to keep e-mailing them back and forth.  The students (in groups of 20-22, but broken into sub groups of 5) choose to then create their own Google Docs pages so they could put what they were doing as the project went along.  After that each group was asked to create a webpage and put all of their content in digital format.  Most of the groups (this is the best one) were fantastic (yes, remember we were working with seniors after the AP exam was over!) and many went way beyond what we asked for.  This group, for example, sent some kids to DC to interview tourist on the debt.  They produced videos (see the DC inteviews above), Prezi, PowerPoints, webpages (here, here, here , here, here and here), quizzes, debates).  Most importantly our students learned a great deal about the national debt, Medicare and Social Security.  I am also happy that when the juniors reach my room next year, I will have to worry less about teaching those topics and additionally can require even more digital assignments.  As if all of this was not enough the legislative assistant and correspondent for US Senator Mark Warner came out and spoke to and answered (and dodged some) a ton of questions from our students. Likewise nationally know Washington Post reporter Robert Samuelson came out and did the same as Warner's two employees. All three were impressed with the knowledge of our students which we believe came from our learning by doing exercise.  Finally, we had to grade these assignments in a short window as my government students ended their school year a week before the juniors.  So we used Google Docs and called each other up one night and literally graded together in real time from our respective homes.  We hope this exercise inspires you to "jump off the cliff" (yes, we already have spoken about how we will do it differently next year) and use more digital learning.  I should add that my principal and my county have been very helpful in getting us enough laptops to actually make this project work.  You can see some of the pics of our combined students in the post below.