With the challenge of putting together my final project for
LIBE 477, which involves
research, writing, and a final product to present, I am now at the stage
of putting my research and design ideas into action. I will be
creating a Prezi presentation for the first time and, as we all know,
doing
anything for the first time takes a lot of work to get it right.This
task has required some problem solving, further research and trial and error. Other challenges this week included putting together multimodal e-book and digital story lists and examples. With my
research complete, or so I thought, I began to fine tune some details of the resources I
was putting together, to both present and compile as a resource list for
teachers. Weeding through all of the sources and then setting out to
find more exemplary options took a significant amount of time.
With the goal in mind of presenting on methods to engage reluctant
readers through multimodal reading programs, I have decided to complete my final project using Prezi (a presentation format new to me). I have heard from several colleagues that they much prefer
to participate in workshops that use Prezi (as opposed to PowerPoint). My question has repeatedly been, why not use PowerPoint. The common
response from other teachers has been, “because Prezi is way better!” Why? I’d
like to know. Well, following some more digging, research and practise with the
program, I have come to learn about a few differences between the programs.
Prezi is touted as being more engaging and more effective. If this is true, I’m
all in, as the way I present is almost as important as my content! Engagement
is said to be heightened with Prezi, as unlike PowerPoint, the program is
non-linear. It does not move from one slide to the next as PowerPoint does, but
rather opens up as a large canvas. This immediately appeals to my brain, which loves, needs even, to see the big
picture. With that large canvas on the screen, I am able to jump around to
different ideas throughout the presentation. The navigation is smooth and easy,
unlike the PowerPoint slides which require a stream of backwards or forwards
screen slides to find your point of reference. The third reason I've found to support
Prezi’s reputation of increased engagement and effectiveness, is that Prezi,
unlike PowerPoint, is web-based. This makes the programs appeal even stronger for me, as I will be able to embed it into my blog (a necessity for posting my final assignment). So, it is for the sake of
engagement, effectiveness and learning something new, that I am attempting to
create and present using Prezi. Check out 'Growing Children in Digital Literacy' - a great example of Prezi in action.
Convinced Prezi is the best tool for presenting my final vision project, I
started to work, putting together my presentation. In doing so, I have
discovered a few annoyances, perhaps only hiccups I should say, with the program. Prezi does not, as far as I can tell, allow me to add notes to my document
like PowerPoint. So, rather than having notes on the side (or even a printable
copy of notes) within the same document, I need to create a separate Word
document to type and save my notes on. This seems quite ineffective, and I wish
I could keep all aspects of this presentation together as one document. The
second struggle I’ve had with Prezi is that it does not let me print “slides”
off. I have searched for a way to print areas of the presentation, which I am
able to zoom in on and would like to print in isolation, to be used as a
handout/reference. So, again, it is back to Word to create a separate document. Sorry to be a downer here as I share all my struggles, but hopefully
my readers don’t mind, and fingers-crossed that they may even be able to
correct me on a few points, making my job with the final vision project a
little smoother. So, if you have any insight into my struggles, please feel free
to correct me or let me know about any tips or tricks that may alleviate these woes.
Aside from learning about and preparing my presentation platform, I
have also been embedding examples of multimodal e-books and digital stories on
my Prezi presentation. With lists of hundreds of digital story resources and
multimodal e-book programs, I set to work selecting the best of the
best. What I discovered from my research and notes is that very few of the examples I collected meet the multimodal
criteria, and of what is available and looks promising, there's a fee. I want my
colleagues to be able to leave my presentation with the tools and resources
in-hand. Having to stop and purchase multimodal e-books on their own dime does not allow for effective implementation. I was hoping to find a variety of multimodal e-books to
share as examples in my presentation. And furthermore, I wanted to compile a
list of multimodal e-book resources for teachers’ easy reference and access. I am certainly conscious to the fact that if these multimodal reading programs involve
further time and extra costs, teachers are not in a position to attain and
implement such programs.
After my lengthy list of multimodal e-books did not result in
anything free and readily available, I furthered my search. A colleague
suggested I check out the Okanagan Regional Librarys on-line books. This
turned out to be a great, free,
resource. The library allows its member’s access to Tumble Books. TumbleBook
Library for Kids contains animated, talking picture books. In automatic mode,
the pages turn by themselves and the book is narrated, with read text
highlighted. When switched to manual, you turn the pages yourself and read
without text being highlighted. At any time, you can turn the sound off in
order to read to yourself or at your own pace. When selecting books, students
can choose those that have a ‘game features’ icon.
Thinking of those schools and/or teachers that do not have ORL access,
I phoned TumbleBooks about purchasing a subscription. I was quoted a
price that is $300 more than my schools annual library budget! Definitely not a
feasible option for most. So, with my focus
shifted back to those that do have an
ORL library card, accessing Tumble Books for Kids allows you to view, or “play”
hundreds or possibly more, multimodal e-books. For now, this is the most promising
solution and a worthwhile resource to include in my final project.
Digital stories are the second multimodal resource I will focus on
in my final project. I appreciate that higher grades will find these resources age/grade appropriate and they also allow for extension activates, including the design
and production of students’ own digital stories. Inanimate Alice is a fantastic
example of a multimodal digital story. Again, I searched for as many free, multimodal
stories as I could find to share with colleagues. Unfortunately, there are not
as many as I had hoped. I spent hours looking at sub-par stories that had no
animation, no choice, and no game-like features. There is quite a difference
between digital stories and multimodal digital stories. Inanimate Alice remains
my primary resource and example of multimodal digital stories.
Below I have compiled a list of resources which can be used as extension
activities after “playing” Inanimate Alice. They teach the steps necessary to
create your own digital story, a great project for engaging students,
reluctant and otherwise, in the upper elementary grades.
The one element I am left to face at this point is to make my
Prezi presentation available to teachers/participants through TeacherConnect. I
would like every teacher/participant in my workshop to be able to access the
presentation on their own laptop screen. This way they can view the links,
videos etc. independently and “play” with programs such as Inanimate Alice.
Making this presentation accessible to all is very important to me, as I want
it to be interactive, not just a ‘stand and deliver’ piece. So along with finishing my Prezi this coming week, I will also be exploring and perhaps consulting the district technology helping teacher, in order to make my presentation widely accessible.
References
Bradfield
Company. (n.d.). Inanimate Alice. Available
from http://www.inanimatealice.com/
Kiri, R.
(2014, May 5). Prezi vs PowerPoint: Which is Right for You? [Web log comment].
Retrieved from https://blog.udemy.com/prezi-vs-powerpoint/
Hovious,
A. (2014). Inanimate Alice: Born digital. Teacher Librarian, 42(2), 42-46.
Excellent, detailed post outlining all the success and challenges you've had so far. Prezi is great for many things (engagement, design, easily shared, embedded, etc), but it does have other limitations as you've found. One easy way to share them is to take the URL of the Prezi and then create a QR Code that people can scan, or a short link that they can type into their computers, or even, embed and post it on the blog that they can go to. Many ways to easily share.
ReplyDeleteInanimate Alice is a great example of Multi-modal reading. You might also want to check out NFB.ca as they have a few other good examples similiar to Inanimate Alice.
Finally, consider doing a "get carded" library day! Every year, I bring in the local public librarian to present to all the grade 9s in my school to get their adult library card...perhaps you could organize a kids day! That way they can all access tumble books (which is awesome too!). Overall, great post!
A "get carded" library day! I love it!
DeleteThanks for all the suggestions.
I am impressed by the scope of the project you have taken on. I am looking forward to seeing your final project as I have become quite interested in "Inanimate Alice". Thanks for sharing your technology struggles.
ReplyDelete