Category: Visualizations

Posted on

Motivating Students – A Make and Take Workshop for Teachers

This week I head back to Edison School of Engineering & Manufacturing, to conduct a two day follow up workshop.  Our previous work together identified four target areas: 

  1. Motivating students
  2. Making learning relevant
  3. Student-centered learning strategies
  4. Effective use of technology

We are going to start by modeling a “Brainstorm, Group, Label” activity (See Tool 13).  It will also  set our agenda for the “make and take activities” of the workshop. Day two begins by modeling a “Fishbowl Discussion Group” on the topic of effective next steps. We’ll use the ideas generated in the fishbowl to design a Strategic Planning Grid (below) to prioritize their staff development for the fall.

Plan-grid

Most of our time over the two days will be spent assisting teachers in designing specific lessons. I’ve assembled some Literacy Strategies that teachers can use as starting points for modify their existing lessons. 

“Non-readers”  for students who lack decoding skills.

“Word-callers” for students who can decode, but lack comprehension skills.

“Turned-off readers” for students who have the decoding and comprehension skills, but lack motivation or engagement.

I’ll also be showcasing some web tools that are very engaging for students.

Wordle (text analysis) 

Many Eyes (data and text visualizations)

Prezi  (presentation tool) 

Dipity  (timeline builder)

Bubbl.us (brainstorming)

Flickr Tag Related Tag Browser (image tag analysis)

Posted on

Teaching Visual Literacy: Media Studies Before the Internet

media studies demo

I thought I’d share this recently rediscovered relic from my early days as a teacher.

Back in the late 1970’s / early 1980’s I started teaching a high school “Media Studies” class. (Pittsford-Sutherland HS, Rochester NY). It was one semester, social studies elective that examined the impact of media on society (mainly TV – and all very McLuhan).   Duane Sherwood, our building edtech specialist, was inspired by early TV pioneer, Ernie Kovacs to shoot this 1 minute video. I used it after my first few introductory lessons. That day, instead of their teacher, my students found a TV / recorder in front of the class. The sign instructed them to “watch this video.”   The shot took “forever” to set up. I attribute my bad acting / missed lines to sitting sideways and trying to keep a straight face. It’s just too bad I wore red flannel and khakis that day….     Hat tip to Stan Merrell for digitizing this one

Posted on

President Obama’s Address to Congress 2/24/09 – Education in the Word Cloud Top 25!

Note: For full web version of President Barack Obama's speech to Congress Feb 24, 2009 click here.  

I think Wordle.net is a great tool that helps teachers and students to analyze text. Read my post to see some ideas for how you can use Wordle to foster literacy and critical thinking in your classroom. 

I used Wordle to make the "word cloud" below out of the text from President Obama's speech to Congress. I chose a setting to display the 25 most frequently used words in his speech. Glad to see that education made the top 25 of his verbal agenda!

You can make your own Wordle version of  his speech. Here's a text file Obama-2-25-09 of his words taken from the NY Times transcript. (I deleted the applause breaks.) Copy and paste it to the Wordle "Create" page and make your own word cloud. For more on Wordle font and layout setting click here. 
Obama-address-25
Posted on

How to Embed a Prezi Presentation in Your Blog

prezi

Please note that Prezi’s embed options have changed.
I updated this post on July 16, 2011.
 

Prezi is a great presentation software that replaces the lineal PowerPoint style with the ability to present text, videos and images in a unique zooming style. Here are samples of how I use Prezi in a variety of settings.

Here’s How to Embed

1. Open your online Prezi presentation and look for the Share tab (lower right in this screen shot.) Click share.

prezi embed 1

 2. You will get the dialog box below. When you choose “</> Embed” tab the dialog box expands and reveal your embed settings. You may want to adjust the pixel size to fit into your blog columns. Copy and paste the html code into your blog.

prezi embed 3

Posted on

Prezi – Engage Your Audience with a Zooming, Non-Lineal Presentation

I’ve been having great fun with Prezi a new web-based presentation software currently in private beta mode. (You can submit a request to be included in the beta.) Prezi allows you to easily create maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs, drawings and present them in a nonlinear way. The menu for adding elements has a very unique navigational approach. (Easier to experience than describe.) Once you’ve added your text and graphics you can define a path through the material. But you can also click on any element in the presentation and zoom until it fits the whole screen. Likewise you can zoom out to reveal the larger presentation canvas. Here’s a link to the Prezi online manual. 

Once completed the presentations can be saved on the Prezi server or downloaded to your computer as a fully functional file set for presentation. (Once downloaded to your computer the presentation is no longer editable.) Prezi will host your presentation to share with others via the web. You can set permissions open up or limit viewers. You can even collaborate by allowing group editing. 

I’ve been working on a brainstorming Prezi (embedded below -click arrow to play). You can click on any element to fully enlarge. For example, click on the image of Ben Stein and the video clip will play. Click on any of the bracket or circle frames and the defined area will fill the screen. Hold down the “R” key on your keyboard and the left mouse will rotate the screen. Use your mouse wheel to zoom in or out. You can explore the presentation using your mouse to pan and zoom or use the path I defined by using the arrows in the lower right. There you will also find a fill screen icon. Here’s a direct link to the presentation.