Title: 8 Great Tools for Classroom Presentations: Teachers Are Pairing Hardware and Software to Create Lessons That Engage Students and Inspire Collaboration
Abstract: Creating classroom presentations keep students engaged and on task is getting complicated for K-12 teachers, who have to rise above myriad distractions to get their points across. Fortunately, there are a number of hardware and software tools available can help teachers break through the distractions and effectively engage students in class. Here, educators share eight presentation tools they're using successfully in their 21st century classrooms. Board Builder Described by its maker as a modem day poster board, Discovery Education's Board Builder is a digital platform (similar to Glogster) lets teachers select backgrounds, text formats, templates and color schemes. Students can customize their collection of resources, tell their own stories and upload their own images, videos and documents to personalize their boards. Second-grade teacher Cheryl Lykowski uses the presentation tool with her Monroe Road Elementary class in Lambertville, Ml. By combining her classroom Smart Board and Board Builder, Lykowski can upload short video clips, reading materials and graphics showing the various components of a mountain or elements of common land plains. a nice, easy and tidy package, said Lykowski, that helps me tie everything together on a single platform and present it in a very intuitive and logical way. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ClickShare Designed by Banco, ClickShare is a wireless presentation and collaboration product designed to let multiple users on multiple computers collaborate on a single projector. solution projects content from a laptop, tablet or smartphone onto a screen with a single click. Students and teachers can use the equipment to share information and ideas to create an ongoing conversation. Since the fall of 2013, Charter School of San Diego has been using ClickShare for screensharing of live television and lectures during student workshops. According to operations administrator Tiffany Yandell, ClickShare lends itself to collaboration because teachers can deliver a lecture and students can handle the related coursework via one streamlined process. Because it's 'live' learning, it really has helped improve student engagement, said Yandell. the same time, students are also learning how to do their own presentations. Educreations An interactive whiteboard app captures voice and handwriting and allows teachers to produce video lessons they can then share online, Educreations is another one of Yandell's favorite presentation tools. What's cool about it is you can record your presentation, she pointed out. A teacher who is conducting a short one-on-one lesson with a student, for example, can hit record, walk the pupil through a problem, record his or her instructions and then save it for later use. The student can go back and rewind it--kind of like a YouTube video, Yandell said. The learning stays with them, they learn at their own pace and they can watch it over and over again. It's a great tool. Read&Write Gold Texthelp's literacy software for the desktop, cloud and iPad helps struggling readers and writers, students with learning disabilities and English language learners access the support tools they need in and out of the classroom. At Glenholme School in Washington, CT, teachers combine their Smart Boards with Read&Write Gold to help the school's special needs student population graphically organize their writing (by concept, mind map or outline). software also predicts words and manages text-to-speech for students handling issues like dyslexia. Educational Director Sharon Murphy said, made our students' lives much easier, and makes presentations much simpler to develop and get across to students. iMapBuilder An all-in-one mapping software, iMapBuilder allows users to design interactive maps with pinpoints, heat maps, routes, zooming and other elements. …
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-06-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 1
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