Digital Writing: Presentations

Presentations are nothing new to teachers.  We see them all the time.  As a matter of fact, we probably have the one on “Universal Precautions” memorized by now.  Honestly, during some of those Teacher Institute presentations, I only use the power point as a guide to see how much longer it will last.  That’s terrible, I know!   But let’s face facts.  How many of us have sat through a professional development “training” by simply being read a power point presentation?  We would all have to raise our hands as an answer. 

I personally am not very comfortable with creating and giving presentations.  I have had to create presentations throughout my education, but they have basically been used as a way to remind me as to what I wanted to say, or to keep me from talking too fast during a speech that had to last for an allotted amount of time.  I use a Smart Board everyday during instruction.  I do have presentations prepared for some lessons, but basically I think of things to add as I teach and never have the time to go back and add them.  Just think how much more engaged my students would be if I were to put forth a little more time and effort into those presentations!

The text, Crafting Digital Writing (Hicks, 2013) suggests you begin with storytelling.  Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I love a good story!  And I just can’t tell it—I have to act it out.  My husband has coined stories “skits”, and now my whole family uses the term.  We typically announce, “I have a skit!”  That means we are about to tell a story and we EXPECT your undivided attention.     

I decided that for the purposes of this assignment, I wanted to widen my experience with presentation software and use a “new to me” presentation tool.  I used emaze Presentations.  It was easy to use because its functions were similar to Power Point.  I also followed the suggestion of actually sketching my presentation on paper prior to typing (Hicks, pg. 71).  It seemed as though I had the presentation outlined in a matter of seconds.  Another suggestion is to allow students freedom within their presentations.  Give them the freedom to create their own templates, colors, and graphics (Hicks, pg. 63).  I do believe that there should be some guidelines to presentation assignments.  I do not think it would be professional for us to give our students “full freedom” within an assignment.  They would need a rubric to follow as to our expectations for an assignment.   I did use the ready-made background and color scheme, but I used a blank slide rather than a template.    

The Common Core Standards for Second Grade English Language Arts states that my students should “Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.” (CCRS, SL.2.5)  I can imagine my students would much prefer to create a presentation rather than write a narrative using a pencil and paper.  So, below you will find a link to my presentation designed to aid us in teaching our students how to create a presentation.

Crafting Digital Writing: Presentations 

by Bethany Sloan

References: 

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: Composing texts across media and genres.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Councilof Chief State School

Officers.  (2010).  Common Core State Standards for English language arts and literacy in history;social studies, science, and technical subjects.  Washington, DC: Authors.