a) have some time to process the wonder that was ililc, and
b) start putting some of the ideas into practice
Prezi v PowerPoint
Yesterday I made my first Prezi, based on the French school system for y12. It took me the whole morning but there was a fair bit of faffing about on Google looking for resources to include as well. Prezi was more straightforward than I though it would be. I managed to insert my original ppt presentation fairly painlessly, although I couldn't get it to occupy the frames in the template. I suspect there is a way, I just haven't found it yet!
Inserting a sound file was a bit of an issue at first as you can't embed MP3 files, but after converting it to MP4 it was ok, and I like the fact that I can play the sound file and have the questions displayed at the same time easily. After lots of googling for FAQs, I managed to do pretty much everything I wanted to and was quite chuffed with the end result: http://bit.lyYtms1T
Now, the question is, will I continue to use Prezi as my main tool for creating slide shows? Probably not in the short term as I think I need to keep practising and get a bit more fluent. It's not realistic to spend that much time preparing every lesson. I will keep going though on the days where I have less prep. Also, it won't be as easy to share with my lovely dept as I am not sure how readily they would all take to Prezi. However, I do think it looks really cool and will impress the kids, but I am always a little wary of the 'show' overtaking the 'content' of the lesson... sometimes it would be easier just to scribble it on the board - the end result in terms of learning would be the same. Also, I know myself, give me a tool like this and I will spend HOURS making it into a thing of beauty, aligning everything straight, designing colour schemes etc etc... I am bad enough on PowerPoint! Watch this space.
QR codes
My second achievement of halt term so far was to put some QR codes into action. Baby steps and all that! So, I have revamped by 'whizzy word wall' - my all time face classroom display - and added a QR code for each section which leads to a poster created with www.checkthis.com, (e.g. http://t.co/6Flkokg5) to explain how to use the words in a sentence. I then used QR stuff to create a QR code from the link.
And the finished article:
I will be encouraging kids to use it in lessons next week, so fingers crossed!
Great work! Tell me more about Checkthis.com Do students have access to your account on that? Not heard of it before but I've checked it out and wonder about the social media aspect. Is account just used for school work under your name?
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ReplyDeleteNo they don't have access to my account - each poster is free standing, they can't 'go' anywhere from it (at least I don't think they can!) unless you create an account.
ReplyDeleteYou can create posters without an account (which is what I do), but the advantage of registering is being able to keep track of what you've created and edit later. However pupils would be able to find your FB.
This was the first time I'd used it... like it though!
Hi MFL Girl, really like your blog. Want to do a similar thing with QR codes. One thing I don't get - where do you save the work that the QR codes link to? For this, have you just made posters on this site checkthis.com which then stay there forever? What if you already have an existing piece of work - eg a scanned piece of pupils' work - that you want to link to a QR code - where would you save the scan? Does it just work like a link in that the QR code 'links' you to the piece of work - if so, I don't get where to save it?
ReplyDeleteAny advice gratefully received :) thanks for your help!
Hello, and thanks! I always forget that people might actually read it!
ReplyDeleteWhen I did these, yes I did just create a permanent poster that the QR code links to. In terms of other pieces of work, I'm not sure... On checkthis you can upload video/images etc, so you could put a scanned piece of work up. Otherwise I guess you would have to have a website to host it, and that is all a bit beyond me!
Ah and I have also noticed the option to 'hide' the social media side banner on posters when using check.this, which is helpful!
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