"The power of two" and "everyone learns from everyone "-- This Week's Mantras
WHO WE ARE:
Beth and LaTis' met at the SIDL and are collaborating on a presentation product. Beth is participating with writing and editing and LaTis' is crafting the attractive graphic design. Both are brainstorming the concept and direction, and will provide choices for the incorporation of cool tools that will make the final product functional as well as visually interesting.
OUR PARTNERSHIP:
Beth is a marketing director looking to upgrade the quality of her company's presentations by incorporating dynamic and engaging content, especially video. LaTis' is an elementary teacher looking to provide teachers with digital resources to be used during the remote learning phase, as a way to expand knowledge of digital literacies and invite teachers to elevate their instructional practices by incorporating some of these resources to improve students' engagement. In partnership, our dyad will develop plans, specific to our audiences, that focus on the incorporation of graphics and video for improved engagement. We will jointly follow a similar lesson format but use semi-different content to address our own work context.
Beth Bailey is a graduate student at URI and marketing director, working for the RI Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner. In these roles, I frequently present information to many different audiences. Additionally, I create presentations for my colleagues who, with encouragement, a template, and tutorials of cool tools, could assume control of their presentations. Creating a method for our staff to create slides quickly will decrease the amount of time spent building presentations and provide a consistent look-and-feel for our corporate identity. With more professional-looking presentations, we hope to improve stakeholder understanding of our goals, accomplishments and needs.
LaTis' Barnes is doctorate student currently pursuing a graduate degree in Teaching and Learning from National-Louis University. I work as an elementary teacher for Chicago Public Schools and with the recent push for remote learning, many teachers were faced with the challenge of providing rigourous learning tasks while juggliing the abiity to maintain student engagement while addressing the barriers associated with adminstering assignments using digital platforms. With this presentation, I would like to provide educators with the opportunity to expand on thier knowledge of digital tools and incorporate some of these tools in their furture planning for student learning.
THE PURPOSE OF OUR INQUIRY: We will examine the use of digital media tools in professional presentations in order to improve the effectiveness of the content being communicated.
LESSON SUMMARY: We will create a Google Slides document for use in presentations. It will incorporate at least two new elements learned at SIDL: a self-created video, a meme, and embedded videos from one of SIDLs keynote speakers and web-accessed instructional videos.
TEACHING GOALS: Beth: My goals are to create a multimedia template in Google Slides that my colleagues can access on their own time to create their own presentations. The addition of content resources and tutorials that I will create for them will enable them to learn quickly and create a variety of slides.
LaTis’: As a 5th year Chicago Public Schools teacher, it is my goal to add some new teaching strategies to what I am currently doing. I will like to use these workshops to improve the way I differentiate instruction and provide a more improved learning experience for my students. My participation in this conference has exposed me to a diverse set of tools exclusively focused on technology and learning in the digital space. It is my goal to become more knowledgeable of best practices in teaching and improve my presentation of the learning material.
LEARNING OUTCOMES: Beth: Transitioning to a shared platform (Google) will allow me to teach my colleagues how to access and use the tools and templates as well as share in the editing process. My personal learning goal is to learn how to use Google Slides, create a branding standard for the slides, and demonstrate facility with the new tools I've learned at SIDL so that I can help my colleagues learn them. My goals for the staff learning will be successful completion of a slide presentation that incorporates video, photography, and graphic elements.
LaTis’: Through this experience, teachers and students will have access to digital resources for use during remote learning. Teachers will be better equipped to provide creative and engaging learning opportunities for their students while students will also benefit from the resource guide as they navigate through our site to gain access to the learning curriculum
TEXTS/TOOLS/TECHNOLOGIES AND RATIONALE: We will make use of Google slides as a main source for sharing content with our audiences. Embedded in the slideshows will be links to Adobe Spark, imgflip, Flipgrid, and royalty-free photography sites so that the new users will feel empowered to make videos, memes, download new images, and share their reflections.
Rationale: Some Westerly Education Center staff use Google worksheets, Google docs and other Google applications that are supported by the aforementioned tools. Due to the COVID shutdown and an inability to access the work server remotely, staff created a shared drive in Google. This drive will now house the Google Slides template and resources for shared use. The template will include instructions and suggestions in the speaker notes area for guidance whenever users employ the tool.
Rationale: Reflection makes learning more meaningful for students, enabling them to develop a personal relationship with the material at hand and to see how it fits into a larger picture. This system of response makes reflecting a more enjoyable task and incorporates the use of digital media in a way that interests many 21st century learners. Flipgrid is a response system that allows students to explain or show their learning using video.
Rather than follow the Inquiry Plan Template, we document our planning and learning this week using a creative brief (Beth) and independent narrative (LaTis').
Beth Bailey
CREATIVE BRIEF
Inquiry: How can we adapt the use of digital tools in presentations to improve communication of content?
What is the project? To create a presentation template in Google Slides. It will feature tools that users can employ to create more dynamic content for WEC presentations.
What do we know about the project? WEC staff have been relying on one person to create all presentations. To allow a more democratic process, where subject experts can create their own compelling slides, a template design will live in the shared WEC Google Drive for universal, any-time access. Users should be able to link to free and easy-to-use tools for content generation. The template will also provide advice on how to lay out and embed content so it is aesthetically pleasing and not compete with other imagery. The template needs to be flexible so that it can be used by staff for fund-raising, budgetary, legislative, community, and sales and marketing needs.
What is the brand personality? Modern. Bright. As a public-private partnership, the brand emphasis should veer away from a “government” look/feel.
What is the audience? Primary: Adults 18-54. The audience is two-fold: staff and community. The staff will use the template to share information about WEC. Some are comfortable with creating slides and a few are beginners. Most presentations to date have included only text and a smattering of photos and spreadsheets. The community will receive messaging about WEC via the presentations and accompanying videos, charts, graphics, memes, photos, and more.
How will it be used? Initially, it will be shared with the staff and live in the shared Google Drive. Other potential uses will be 1) interns who may be contributing to presentations; 2) partners such as Electric Boat, Governor’s Workforce Board, and RIC, who conduct joint presentations with the Executive Director; and 3) staff engaged in professional development and postsecondary education who wish to enhance their student and learning projects.
What are some of the necessary elements? Must include tutorials so users can quickly grasp how to use new tools. Needs to work in a horizontal format. Simple design preferred. Colors should be complementary to WEC’s palette .Inclusion of the logo elements will be needed. A variety of slide layouts, especially a cover slide and conclusion/contact slide. Links to tools.
LaTis' Barnes
In 21st century teaching and learning, the use of multimedia activities has shown significant improvements in students' achievement. Multimedia activities encourage students to work in collaborative groups, express their knowledge in multiple ways, solve problems, revise their own work, and construct knowledge. The advantages of integrating multimedia in the classroom are many. This spring, many schools around the world were forced to transition to remote learning platforms. This proved to be exceedingly challenging for many teachers and student learning was impacted. It is my belief, that with the proper training and access to digital resources, many teachers would have felt better equipped to provide students with the most effective learning opportunities, even in the absence of physical classroom spaces in school buildings. Through participation in multimedia activities, students can learn a host of new skills, including but not limited to, real-world skills related to technology, effective collaboration techniques, how to present information in compelling ways and techniques for synthesizing and analyzing complex content.
In this lesson, I invite teachers to explore different resources for presenting instructional content and assessing student learning. Teachers will explore the use of digital tools through the use of graphics and video and learn the benefits of incorporating such media into a lesson. Teachers will have the opportunity to reflect on their experience in both real-time and anytime learning workshops, and they will also have the opportunity to explore some of these resources in order to develop an instructional piece to be used in their own classrooms.
The access to anytime learning provides teachers with the ability to revisit the site at any time that is convenient for them. The real-time learning allows for collaboration with other teachers and access to real-time support from an multimedia “expert.” Teachers will learn the technique of making and using MEMEs for instructional purposes, use professional quality video to provide learners with content in a fun and engaging way, and then use flipgrid to reflect on their learning and potential use for digital media.
In this collaborative Google Slides presentation, we incorporated our learning from the workshops in order to provide our audiences with digital media resources and their potential use in the fields of business and education. We employed the use of Google Slides as the framework for our presentation. To capture the interest of our diverse audiences, we applied many different digital tools to offer increased opportunities, choices, and access to multimedia resources.
Additionally, the development of a Google Sites page as a tool for educators to access the digital resources, learn about the benefits of incorporating digital media in their lesson planning and opportunities to use these tools as an engagement tool for demonstrating their understanding of content.
This Google Slides presentation features: 1) a photo collage created in Adobe Spark for demonstrating a layout of multiple images; 2) a video tutorial created in Adobe Spark demonstrating how to create a short video using Adobe Spark; 3) a meme generated by imgflip; 4) a video tutorial of how to use imgflip to create a meme; 5) an embedded SIDL video about the concept of WALLDO, a lesson on video angles; and 6) slides with graphics that can be customized.
This week I started the conference with many feelings of anxiety and concerns about working collaboratively, in such a short time, to complete a task that seemed massive. As you can see from my reflection, I was quite nervous on day 1 so I took notes as a strategy to help me remember everything I had learned and experienced that day. I am not the best with public speaking and having to record myself made this task very uncomfortable for me. I wanted to share my video from the start of the week as a way for me to see my progress. By Thursday, my reflections became more relaxed, and I had become more comfortable in front of the camera. I am very appreciative of this opportunity, and I suspect that this experience will help me grow as an educator and leader in my field.
I now feel more confident in my ability to navigate the conference tools and create new digital products. We were told that creation is messy...and I finally grew comfortable with being uncomfortable in the creative space. Meeting tough deadlines seemed daunting, but I gave up trying to create "perfect" products. The institute leaders reassured us that learning was more important than being perfect.
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