Final Project: Multimedia Presentation of Oral Discussion Rubric

Integration, Synthesis and Metamorphosis

For our final project for course 3, Barb and I decided to use what we had learned about visual literacy to support our student's understanding, retention and recall of the oral discussion skills and language of an effective participant in group discussions in the high school at ISB. The HS ESL Discussion rubric is used by the HS ESL teachers in grades 9-12 to assess students' proficiency and progress in using these target skills and language in their ESL classrooms. Our rationale for choosing to present this rubric to our students in a multimedia format using VoiceThread is discussed in an earlier blog. In this week's blog, I will reflect on the final project and the course overall.

I am satisfied overall with our final project as this was the first time for Barb and I to use VoiceThread and to attempt to present and share a written rubric in a multimedia format. We were not sure going in of the possibilities, limitations, or challenges posed. Yet, we quickly saw the learning and technological possibilities and tried to utilize these to the benefit of our students, and encountered limitations and challenges which we worked together to overcome (both in ways direct and easy and indirect and difficult). We learned a lot on our own and together.

For the final product, I would still have liked to have had a thematic connection to the images outside of their connection to the rubric, perhaps a nature theme or a young adult theme with only photographs (not a mix of drawings or computer graphics and photos). After finishing the project and viewing/hearing the audio feeds and titles, I also now feel it would have been best to simply read the titles (the rubric criteria), which appear briefly across the bottom of the screen, rather than describing the picture and showing how it connects to the main idea for each criterion. I feel the audio feed is too lengthy and takes away from the salience of the pictures and titles. I would rather have this discussion in class with the students—let them discuss the connection of each picture to each rubric criterion. Having the students themselves find the connection will again reinforce their understanding, retention, and recall of the rubric criterion. I feel the VoiceThread stands alone best as a series of minimalist image/title visual reminders of each target skill and language expected of students in an oral discussion. An oral feed that analyzes the connection of the image to the rubric criterion does not do this.

Other possibilities I would like to explore are overlaying the titles on the image itself as they are not noticeable in small font, at the bottom of the screen, as they briefly appear after each image loads. Having made this visual representation of an important class rubric, I am also now interested in having the students create such a multimedia resource themselves with images they choose and with voice threads they prepare where they paraphrase each criterion in their own words.

Some limitations and challenges I still want to work on are becoming more skilled at Internet search engines, whether it's Creative Commons or Google as it takes a long time to find the images or information I am searching for. I feel that with more practice and training must be able to speed up what seems to be an overlong process. Finding images took up the majority of the time Barb and I spent on the project. Embedding video and sharing video of a high visual and auditory quality and manageable size is another area where I need to improve. If we are to create and share such multimedia files with our students they need to be of high quality yet of a size that can be easily downloaded and shared via the Web 2.0 tools used by students and teachers at ISB to communicate and learn.

As for the course overall, I feel this course has given me skill and confidence with a larger tool set of Web 2.0 tools that I can draw upon for the benefit of enhanced student learning in my classes. Since this third course began on September 9th (just seven weeks ago) I now have an account and have posted and shared multiple resources on Google Docs, VoiceThread, SlideShare, and YouTube with my students, colleagues and the larger community of Internet users. (I have also continued to use and explore new uses of our school's Moodle-based course management system, PantherNet) Finally, I leave this third course with an understanding and appreciation of the importance and value of supporting (and where it fits in with my course curricula teaching) visual literacy (along with information and technological literacy) in my ESL and science classes. Big changes in just 7 weeks!

Towards Better Presentations..."My Seven Deadly PowerPoint Sins"

Periodic Table Families Revised 09

View more presentations from Karen Reau.

Periodic Table R08

View more presentations from Karen Reau.

I use PowerPoint in my science classes most days as it is an easy way to organize and share the information I want to cover with students and it provides a record for me and my students of what we discuss each day when reviewing a day's material and at the end of a unit when preparing for tests. I also like PowerPoint as videos, images, url links to information on the web can be contextually embedded in the PowerPoint presentation to enhance the presentation of class content. PowerPoint also allows me to easily revise or add to my presentation based on student misconceptions and depth of understanding on the spot or for subsequent classes. As a language teacher, I like the ability of PowerPoint to support a student's listening comprehension and understanding of a lecture along with student note-taking and deciphering of teacher handwriting and speech decoding. PowerPoint presentations are unfortunately easy to put together quite horribly. Text and images can fill and litter an extensive number of PowerPoint slides in a miniscule number of minutes...to the detriment of student learning and effective teaching. There are many great resources on the web to help presenters create more effective PowerPoint presentations. I especially like these blogs from Presentation Zen blog website:

• What is good PowerPoint design? (talks about the importance of context in determining what is 'appropriate or inappropriate' in terms of creating and presenting a 'great' PowerPoint)
• From design to meaning: a whole new way of presenting? (talks about six fundamental aptitudes relevant for today's 'conceptual age' and presentaions: 'Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning')
• Make your next presentation naked (talks about designing and delivering presentations with 'simplicity, clarity, honesty, integrity, and passion')
  

As a teacher, reading the above and other resources I did not so much find myself surprised at any novel ideas found in these articles but rather ashamed that in the interest of time I was using PowerPoints that I knew could be greatly enhanced for more effective student learning and teaching. So as a reminder to myself and a visual record of my promise to find the time to create better PowerPoint presentations for my students, I will list my seven deadly PowerPoint sins...

1. Using PowerPoint as a time saving rather than a creative tool
2. Using PowerPoints that require students to be passive listeners rather than active participants
   
3. Using PowerPoint to relay (lecture on) rather than discuss class content
4. Using PowerPoints in ways with which I am comfortable and familiar
5. Using PowerPoint slides that are loaded with sentence-level text using complex structures and vocabulary
   
6. Using PowerPoint slides that are 'busy' with text, images, links, color
7. Using PowerPoint slides that are impersonal, not show my personality
   

A first step in moving beyond these sins has been the revision of the attached PowerPoint. Periodic Table_r08 is the original class PowerPoint and Periodic Table_Families revised_r09 is the revised class PowerPoint predominately for slides 37-48 of the original PowerPoint. In comparing the two PowerPoints, I hope the following areas are notable and improvements on the original PowerPoint and my seven sins:

1. Time was taken to improve a PowerPoint used in previous years in order to enhance its pedagogical and creative potential
   
2. The images depicting key terms (slides e.g. slide 22), videos (slide 15), interactive web sites (slide 3), and blank slides for student generated text (slide 8) require active participation on the part of the students
3. Active participation as demanded in # 2 above and the elimination of the need to take notes with the provision of a PowerPoint slide handout facilitated class discussion
   
4. Using PowerPoints to facilitate class discussion
   
5. Each slide has less text than the original and color to identity key terms and images depicting key vocabulary
   
6. The slides have more images, color and links but less text (~a trade-off, perhaps)
   
7. The choice of images (slide 31) and cartoons (slide 9 and 24) showed my personal interests and humor
   

In using the revised PowerPoint with my Chemistry 9 students I noticed a greater interest, understanding, and retention of the content through the use of more video clips (especially MythBusters, which the students ask every day if we can watch another video clip from what has now become their favorite Discovery channel show), images, and less text per slide. I also printed the revised PowerPoint for the students as a 3 slide handout so that the students and I could focus on discussing together the content of the presentation rather than having the students' focus taken up with notetaking. Having more video clips, URL links, and images and less text also freed me to engage the students in a more natural discuss versus lecture on the class content. Overall, I found the PowerPoint, revised and presented as describe above, provided the students more time for reflective thought and class discussion while presenting the content with more salient and memorable visual connections. There is much more I can do to improve this and each of the PowerPoints I used in my class so I encourage myself to continue by the words of Scott Reed, "This one step - choosing a goal and sticking to it - changes everything."

Using Visual Imagery to Support Curricular Content

In teaching comparative writing to my English for Academic Purposes (EAP) grade 10 students, one of the aspects of comparative writing that students struggle with is finding a meaningful purpose for comparison (and to a lesser degree choosing subjects to compare that are similar in nature). Finding or brainstorming similarities and differences between two or more subjects is an easy first step for my students, but to find a meaningful purpose for comparison of two or more subjects that is well supported through the selection and description of key similarities and differences (and grouped into aspects) that themselves make the comparison of subjects meaningful and interesting is the challenge.

In using this picture at the start of the unit to help students understand the importance of choosing two or more subjects similar in nature and aspects of comparison with relevant, meaningful and interesting points of comparison, I would guide my students through the following questions:

1. Who is being shown in the picture? How are they likely related? (~subjects)

2. How are these three girls similar? (~points of similarity)

3. How can we group these similarities into labeled categories? (~aspects)

4. How are these three girls different? (~points of difference)

5. How can we group their differences into labeled categories? (~aspects)

6. Which categories overlap for the similarities and differences identified? (~meaningful subjects and aspects)

7. Why might there be a need to know points of comparison (similarities and differences) between these three girls? and by whom? (~meaningful purpose and target audience)

8. Which of these purposes is most meaningful and interesting? for whom? and which aspects and points of comparison are most meaningful, interesting and relevant in support of this purpose of comparison? (~meaningful purpose, aspects, points of comparison)

By starting the unit on comparative writing with the above image and questions, I can begin to address what is the most challenging aspect of the initial stages of the writing process with comparative writing—choosing subjects similar in nature, where there is a real need to describe (compare and contrast) the subjects through the selection of meaningful, relevant, and interesting points of comparison. Such a start to the unit also allows me to introduce key vocabulary early on (See bold words in parentheses after each question above).

The image itself I believe the students will find memorable and interesting and an effective link now and later to the vocabulary and concepts of comparative writing described above for the following reasons:

1. The photo is unusual for today in being a black and white photo and memorable for the old-fashioned attire (clothes, tights and hair pieces) of the girls.
2. The photo is of children, three young girls, a subject to which we are all drawn—have an emotional (evolutionary) connection.
3. Yet there is an emotional disconnect between the joy and innocence of youth and the stark black and white color of the photo and the lack of emotional affect of the body language and facial expressions of the girls overall.
4. Twins are interesting! Thinking about twins addresses issues of personal identity for us all.

Using this photo as outlined thus helps to jump-start the unit in an interesting way that links key concepts and vocabulary to a salient image for enhanced short and long-term memory retention.

To end this blog, I would like to share one of my favorite uses of an image for facilitation of memory retention on how to start a compare and contrast essay, piece of comparative writing. Students are asked to start their writing with the use of (a)...


S Startling, shocking, surprising Statement or Statistics

Q Question or Quote

D Dialogue or Description

F Flashback or Anecdote

L List of images

S Setting: time, place, atmosphere
H Character: physical or personality traits

* Or a mixture of any of the above.

To help students remember the various options for starting their compare and contrast essay I show students the following picture and tell them to remember Squid Flesh, or a fleshy squid!