For Class Discussion:
Lecture without much interaction, good structure/sequence, and/or interactive media can be boring, and we all have bad experiences from (long and tedious) PowerPoint presentation. If any tools from this week is selected and used well, it will make presenting contents much more interesting. There are many tools and media hypes about podcasting, screen capturing, online video, and virtual conferencing, but it’s all about presenting and sharing more rich contents – easier, faster, and involving the audience. Tools selected for this week exactly address that – some focus more on audio, others are more on video or visuals:
- Educause’s 7 Things You Should Know About Next-Generation Presentation Tools
- Challenging the Presentation Paradigm (in 6 minutes, 40 seconds): Pecha Kucha by Jason B. Jones
- Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Tips in particular, the three sections, ‘Organization & Preparation Tips’, ‘Delivery Tips’ and ‘Slide Tips’.
- Seth’s Blog: Really Bad Powerpoint
Popular Tools – Course Google Site at https://sites.google.com/site/idt351spring2016v3/
- iTune
- Audacity (For PC and Mac (Garage Band is also popular on Mac)
- Skype
- Wordle
- Slideshare
- Zoho Presentation (part of collaboration/project mgmt suite)
- Prezi (3 lessons)
- Jing
- Ustream
- Elluminate (virtual conferencing, now called BB Collaborate, free version supports up to 3 people)
Further Resources or Tools worth checking:
- PechaKucha 20×20 (can find great examples of PechaKucha presentations)
- Screencast-0-Matic (another easy to use and free screen casting tools for PC and Mac)
- CamStudio (free alternative to Camtasia, from Techsmith, now PC & Mac)
- Talkshoe (community call voice chat)
- Flickr Slideshow (Search Google for Flickr Slideshow. Changes were made and multiple options exist)
- Spresent (Window flash animation)
- Glogster (graphic blog community) (what it is)
- Livestream
- TodaysMeet (free live stream space)
- Poll Everywhere (well, we all know popular texting poll)
- Podcasting with Windows Media Player by Jake Ludington
- Create a Podcast with Blogger (YouTube Video, 2:26 min, worth checking. Can publish to iTune)
- JuiceReceiver – a media aggregator which automatically downloads podcasts and media files to your computer or portable device
- Educating the Net Generation: Chapter 7, Convenience, Communications, and Control: How Students Use Technology (for more comprehensive info on tech/web/mobile use, see the Pew research link on the left)
Supplementary Sources, if interested in extending YouTube:
- YouTube Annotations (how to tutorial)
- YouTube Launches Auto-Captioning for Videos by Ben Parr (short video about captioning for hearing impaired is worth checking)
- If #2 above looks good, please check a counter perspective on YouTube’s auto-captioning feature: Sorry, Google, YouTube Captions Aren’t for the Deaf. They’re for Your Robots by Xander Becket
- Viddler (commenting and tagging video contents to improve search and share)
Last but not least, as Web contents have become huge, content curation has become a Very Important trend and direction:
- Combine instead of creating one (15 top notch tools and another great list and 10 free tools for education)
- Four promising tools (Storify 2 min video)(another example)
- Content curation (how to mix/curate stories, blogs, news, social media, etc).
- Video curation (what it is and tips) – Tools: Yokto, Magnify, Shortform, and expect more to come.
Post your comment, please try to answer all questions concisely and to the point:
- Which tool(s) did you focus for the purpose of better and more effective content presentation? What is your thought about content presentation and which tool looked most useful and promising? For effective use, what do you need to do in terms of instructional design, management, and use of media/tools? Do you think a school or workplace must actively use tools introduced in this week? Why or why not? If you are the designer or teacher, what should you consider in adoption or implementation?
webtoolsforclassroomblog 
Do you think a school or workplace must actively use tools introduced in this week? Why or why not? If you are the designer or teacher, what should you consider in adoption or implementation?
I liked looking into Skype, Poll Everywhere and iTunes. I think focusing on these programs would be very helpful for communication in every way shape and form. Poll Everywhere is a way to get everyones input and gather as much important information as possible. For example, you wanted to ask a group of people what is your favorite color. You would lay out all of the questions you can possibly think of and pass out the survey to anyone you want to take it. Once you’ve had the amount of people you’d want to answer it you’d get back the answers people have replied to and then you’d see a graph of the answers. Next I looked into Skype, this is a way of talking to people either text chat, voice chat or video chat. This is a great way of talking to people far and wide and bringing them together using the application or the software via desktop. Lastly iTunes has many things to offer when it comes podcasts, music, movies and music videos and so much more but for now we are looking at only podcasts. This way people can pass on podcasts for any given topic and anyone can listen and invite themselves to continue to listen. I think these three are very important due to being such a strong way of spreading information in the simplest form. When it comes to letting people relax and take in information, I would use iTunes’ podcast and that way you can say everything you want to say within the podcast without having the fear of being capped or having to be short with things. When someone wants to get feedback I would use Poll Everywhere. I have used it plenty of times, and to be honest I’ve switched to Google Form, and I love the thought of getting help from others with an easy website like this. Lastly when it comes to wanting to incorporate as many people as possible I’d used Skype. This is a very helpful program that only needs the internet when it comes to being connected to people on a further level. I think it would be hard to use Skype in a regular classroom but in a college classroom with a keynote speaker I could see this possible; I would say to use this only once in a while situation. Poll Everywhere can be used frequently if you set your classroom to use it that way and I would recommend a classroom to have it use a feedback program as much as possible. iTunes Podcast could be hard for a regular classroom but I think it would be best for an online class because it leaves the student to fulfill the requirement of being in class without an actual classroom.
I would honestly use all of these but not all the time. Since WIU is moving to be Google I would use the google version of Poll Everywhere, Google Form, as much as possible in my classroom so I can keep the students using technology as much as possible. iTunes Podcast I’d use yearly and use it more for reference but not as a backbone to the classroom. Skype I’d honestly not use unless a student needed to due to a sickness or a traveling situation.
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The tool that I focus for the purpose of more effective content presentation is Zoho tool. Zoho is a good organizer tool which has more than tool such as creating project, creating presentation and chat support that allows for learners to contact with Zoho tool any time they want. Content presentation is very useful for people to learn and understand by the presenter contents. The instructor who does not use content presentation for his/her lecture is difficult to deliver information to people. For instructional design, I will use many of media/tools because instructional technology depends on using technology in education. I will make contents more effective by designing and develop materials. There many of media that developed by instructional technology which aims to develop the contents of education. I think it is important for school or workplace use tools that we introduced in our week because without using these tools it is difficult for every school to develop their learners. But I think must of school today use these tools because they are more useful for student and for teacher too. If I become a designer, I will consider these tools by use them in my design or lecture to make it more effective. Overall, they are very useful tools that could help learner to develop his/her skills.
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Which tool(s) did you focus for the purpose of better and more effective content presentation?
I mainly focused on Zoho Presentation and Slideshare. I really like the ease of Zoho and the professional look it brings with little effort. Slideshare was more of gaining knowledge of a certain topic through other peoples presentations. This is useful for learning more about a topic that you are interested in. I really liked seeing what other people did for their presentations compared to what I did for mine.
What is your thought about content presentation and which tool looked most useful and promising?
Content presentation is really important to me because not everyone learns in the same exact way. Some people may understand all of the information given in a lecture while others may not understand quite as much. A lot of people are visual or kinetic learners. So the aid of a presentation will better help them understand the topic that is being taught or presented. Zoho looked the most promising out of all of the tools above to create a presentation. Slideshare is also a great tool for learning about a topic and seeing what others did compared to what you have done.
For effective use, what do you need to do in terms of instructional design, management, and use of media/tools?
For the most effective use of these tools, it would be best to incorporate graphs, illustrations, charts, diagrams, ect. into the presentation to really give a visual appeal and visual learning aspect so that the content is easier to understand for everyone who will be watching or learning. These tools will help anyone who is trying to give information, trying to persuade someone, giving a pitch on something, or anything else. Having a presentation ready shows that you are a professional (if done right) and are serious, and also, that you have done your homework.
Do you think a school or workplace must actively use tools introduced in this week? Why or why not?
Absolutely schools and workplaces should actively use these tools. These are a more effective way of getting any information across to the widest variety of learners that there is. These can add a little bit of a healthy distraction and fun instead of just listening for someone talk for two hours straight.
If you are the designer or teacher, what should you consider in adoption or implementation?
I would consider which one best suits the job that I am currently working on. If I am working on a fun project then I might make a presentation that is very flashy and fun and colorful with lots of transitions and effects. However, if I have a boring client, then I would make a very standard presentation with little to no transitions and most likely a grey or blue background with little design elements.
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I focused on Prezi.
All of the tools have different purposes for presenting, so I believe for the topic of which tool is the best, it really depends on the situation. For a person that needs to present, but can’t be at the presentation site, Skype would be a good choice. For a presentation, Slideshare and Prezi both work for presenting depending on how well you know one of the presentations. It all depends on what you need, which programs will provide it, and how well you can use said programs.
Using all of the instructional design that we have used so far is very much recommended along with managing who is working on what and using media efficiently is all a must when getting things ready for making a presentation.
I know for a fact that teachers use Power Point like its going out of style and they need to get the most out of it as fast as they could. Businesses also use these for conferences, training, and presentations just to name a few. If I was a teacher at a school, I would use Prezi to get the kids more involved in seeing what is happening on the screen. I’ve also seen Skype be used in the classroom (specifically my band class back in high school) to get in touch with a famous composer, so that would be another way to use the technology. There are really so many ways of doing this that I can’t even name them all here.
the best, it really depends on the situation. For a person that needs to present, but can’t be at the presentation site, Skype would be a good choice. For a presentation, Slideshare and Prezi both work for presenting depending on how well you know one of the presentations. It all depends on what you need, which programs will provide it, and how well you can use said programs.
Using all of the instructional design that we have used so far is very much recommended along with managing who is working on what and using media efficiently is all a must when getting things ready for making a presentation.
I know for a fact that teachers use Power Point like its going out of style and they need to get the most out of it as fast as they could. Businesses also use these for conferences, training, and presentations just to name a few. If I was a teacher at a school, I would use Prezi to get the kids more involved in seeing what is happening on the screen. I’ve also seen Skype be used in the classroom (specifically my band class back in high school) to get in touch with a famous composer, so that would be another way to use the technology. There are really so many ways of doing this that I can’t even name them all here.
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The tools I would like to focus on is Ustream and Elluminate. I think content presentation should be something at least screen share. If there are more feature like video conference or audio conference will be much better. Actually I have used old version of Elluminate many years age. This is a really good one for content presentation. It can share the screen of the teacher, do video or audio conference. And since I was taking AP lesson by using Elluminate, we write the solutions of the question on the ppt that teacher shows us. It’s important for a good content presentation tool to make sure there’s a administrator to make the room working well. As for instructional designs, it should be easy to follow and easy to use. I think online courses could use this kind of tools and let it feels like face-to-face. Teacher can monitor the student’s status like in a regular classroom. Workplace is also a good place to use such tools in the situation like doing video conferences. There’are really many places can use these tools. Adoption is not a big problem for people who familiar with technology staffs. Implementation could be easily solved by doing video conference or set up some questions or things let people to make responses.
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I focused on iTunes. iTunes is more of a music tool than anything. It is simples and has many features that can help people do a lot with what they are given. They allow users to customize the way they present their library, albums, playlist, and many other things. I think it’s really affective the way thy allow you to choose 20 different ways to organize your dog list depending on what you are looking for. For example you can organize them by the date they were added, artist, name of the song ect. It has many tools you can use to add to your collections and or share it with family members. iTunes is very customizable to the users need which becomes very affective especially if a user has a large quantity of music. I would not say this tool needs to be used in the workplace or the classroom because it’s more focused towards music. I do believe it can be implemented in the school system for teachers. iTunes allows you to share something you buy with a few devices allowing a department to have to purchase only one movie and then share between the teachers this account. I do believe it can also be used in pre school or early elementary for apps and learning games. Other than what I have stated I do not see the need to use iTunes in the workplace or the school system.
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The tool that I focused on the most for content presentation was Prezi and slideshare. They both have features that allow you to create an organized presentation and allows you to save your work to a different location. To me content presentation is important if you are introducing something new to someone or a group of people. It is important that people know how to use something if they are going to need the moderate or advanced features of that tool. I think that mostly all the tools were useful and promising but because i have used audacity, prezi, and slideshare the most they would be the best fit for me. in terms of instructional design, management, and media tools these different tools could be used to put together presentations or class slides, or even be used for company projects. schools and work places already use most of these tools in their settings. this is the era of technology so it is more than likely that all of these tools are used on a daily basis for effective learning and advancement of knowledge.
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