Stand and deliver presentations remain a primary/ the primary way teachers transmit information. Many teachers use PowerPoint, Google Slides and other slidedeck tools to support these lectures and presentations. A little bit of know how with Google Slides will let a presenter make a more dynamic/ interactive presentation.
Here are 5 of my main tips: 1) Backchannel. Use the Peardeck add on or the Presenter View to allow quieter students to ask questions and more fully participate in the class. I was speaking with one of my students today about a report a teacher wrote saying she wished this student spoke more. I teach at a place which prides itself on its kindness. Many students share their opinions freely. Teachers pride themselves for fostering dynamic conversation in their classroom. Yet this girl just doesn't feel comfortable speaking in that class.
2) Formative Assessment- See above. After all, how do we know what students are thinking and knowing. Peardeck and Presenter View are both terrific for this as well.
3) Don't clutter slides with words. Slidedecks should support the presentation, not be the presentation. Pictures, large graphics and keywords should comprise the bulk of the visual presentation. Bullet points upon bullet points of information is a recipe for boring and does little to supplement or enhance the presentation.
4) DriveSlides by Alice Keeler is a great new(ish) extension by Alice Keeler that I use to share student work back with kids. I use DriveSlides in conjunction with Google Classroom. Remember that Google Classroom creates a Classroom folder in Drive. Now imagine you have students share screenshots of their artwork. math homework, etc... A sub-folder containing this work will exist in Drive. A quick click of the DriveSlides extension will make a Slides presentation with its own url. It's a super easy way to receive and share out student work.
5) Google Keep/ Slides Integration: Archive pictures with Google Keep. Using the Keep Notepad in the Tools menu, you can easily pull in these pictures and other work.
Want to be "hip" with your Chrome browser? Learn what the omnibar can do. The Google omnibar is useful for so much more than searching with Google or typing in a url address. (For beginners, the omnibox is where the address to this website is at the top of this screen.) Here are some of my favorite "tricks". Check 'em out. 1) There are some little shortcuts. For instance, don't know a word? Highlight this word "hippopatumus" and drag it to the omnibox. You can also drag and drop an image to do the same thing. 2) Now try this: Type "timer 30 seconds". It takes you to an instant timer and stopwatch. 3) Type "Roll dice". 4) Type y=3x+4, viola instant graph and type 300*400, instant calculator. It does some trigonometry as well, try "(x+y)sin(1/x)sin(1/y)". Lovely, no? 5) Type "gm" and immediately it will have you begin to search your gmail account. 6) The omnibar converts all types of measurements. Type "One mile in feet?" or "milliliters in gallon". Nifty, right? 7) Type "Flip a coin"
8) This tip is for hipsters wi 8) Type "What does the cow say?" and you'll be amused by the result.
9) Type "metronome" 10) Finally, for fun, try "barrel roll". Google calls these boxes that pop up as the result of these searches, "cards". These cards are more than search results. They are powerful interactive tools. Some have real utility in the classroom.
Though it does many, many more things, I think this is a nice sampling of the things one can do with the Omnimar. YouTube is full of videos on the omnibar. Here's a little playlist of some useful ones.
I'm old enough to remember when MicroSoft Publisher came out. I thought it was so cool. I took students to the computer lab to make old-fashioned looking newspapers about the Great Depression. We were so proud of ourselves. It was the first time I found easily accessible software that blended text, layouts and images.
I don't use anything made by microsoft these days as I live pretty exclusively in the ChromeOS and IOS platforms. But a quick google of Publisher's cost shows it ain't cheap. I'm sure more than a few schools still pay for the licensing. But the cost likely means that the Publisher skills learned at school won't be used beyond school. This brings me to Canva. I love it. And it's free! With it, I create posters, headings, infographics, and simple graphics for my blog posts. I use it all the time. Try it out! Canva even has its own design lessons.
It's easy, it's collaborative, it looks really good and it is cloud-based. So use this free tool and show it to your students.
Here's an example.
I've recently started receiving Peter Nilsson's terrific Educator's Notebook newsletter. In fact, I subscribe to it and receive it weekly in my. Check it out. It's amazing.
In progressive circles, E.D. Hirch's work on Cultural Literacy is broadly maligned. So I admit to be very interested in seeing Nilsson highlight an article of appreciation of Hirsch's work called, On The Importance Of Knowledge (Via E. D. Hirsch) by Daniel Willingham.
Willingham writes that Hirsch has an undeserved reputation of an ultra-conservative. In fact, Willingham suggests that many critics opposed Hirsch because he was apparently advocating that school children spend most of their time memorizing the names of dead white males.
Hirch's more informed critics never accused Hirsch of advocating for mindless memorization. Instead, they objected to his Eurocentric, male-centric view of history. Hirsch was fully aware the political climate in which he was writing. There's a reason why the National Review considers Hirsch a hero. https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/02/educational-reformer-hirsch-promotes-knowledge/. Was he really an innocent pawn in the culture wars? Some traditionalists in the field of education consider him a hero for emphasizing facts over skills.
Yet, I'll point out Hirsch was a life-long democrat. I'll also point out that in this increasingly fractious nation, the notion that we need some form of civitas, a shared sense of Americanness, based upon common ideas and ideals resonates with me. Because the alternative is tribalism. Ideas matter and so do the lack of ideas. An uninformed citizenry should worry us. If we don't default to ideals and ideas, we will default to race.
Additionally, good primary and secondary teachers of the progressive ilk- I consider constructivists to be "progressive" - would agree with Hirsch that schema matters. Of course we have to know things. It is how we scaffold knowledge. It is how we make meaning. I certainly do not believe in the teaching of facts for their own sake. For outside of context, they are meaningless.
Those who promote creativity and collaboration and diminish the importance of content forget that one needs to know things, skills and concepts in order to be creative. This shouldn't be an ideological debate. Of course content matters
My consistent critique of traditional models of education is that we teach content in isolation. We fetishize it. Sometimes it seems we have Gradgrindian emphasis on facts above all else. (Referencing Mr. Gradgrind proves Hirsch's point?) We don't let kids develop collaborative skills and creative skills and communication skills. In the past, I've advocated for teachers to take an inventory of their tests to see how many questions simply ask for recall. I've argued that most test questions given in most schools ask these kinds of questions.
I'll end by returning to Hirsch's cultural argument; in this current political climate in the USA, those who are "woke" need reminding that the most effective challengers to the American political establishment have always been those who have clothed their criticisms within an American framework, hearkening back to ideals established in the Declaration and Constitution. "Four score and eighty years ago...." Lincoln grounded his cause in the Declaration.
On the eve of the 50th anniversary of his assassination, take a look at how Dr. King in part grounded his cause in the Constitution and used American ideals- our common, foundational ideals, as he spoke to the black citizens of Montgomery, Alabama.
And we are not wrong; we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. If we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong.
Knowing stuff matters. Knowing how to use it matters more. Here's the speech.
1) Backchannel. Use the Peardeck add on or the Presenter View to allow quieter students to ask questions and more fully participate in the class. I was speaking with one of my students today about a report a teacher wrote saying she wished this student spoke more. I teach at a place which prides itself on its kindness. Many students share their opinions freely. Teachers pride themselves for fostering dynamic conversation in their classroom. Yet this girl just doesn't feel comfortable speaking in that class.
