A lot of the tools I have learned about in this class have been ones which I have or plan to use in my life outside of the classroom. Learning a little more about audio and video will be great but Diigo especially has been something I have needed for a while without ever knowing it existed. Keeping track of articles I've read and liked online has always been a pain with traditional bookmarking. The idea of building your own data base to refer back to is great!
As far as in the classroom goes I think Prezi is something I will get quite a bit of use out of. As I've mentioned previously I teach young children and often have classes without the children using a book. While I have made good use of PowerPoint in the past, Prezi is much more dynamic and eye catching. It is a form that will work well to encourage the children to interact and participate. Some of the presentations I saw in our class, especially the two traffic related lessons, were great and gave me ideas on how I can use it effectively. Although I need to put sometime into learning how to use the program to its full potential, it is something that I plan to use on a regular basis with my class.
Prezi definitely looks more impressive than PowerPoint and I agree it is a very useful skill to know. After using Prezi, looking at my old PowerePoint presentations feel so dated. I forgot about Steve mentioning Diigo. I had to click on the link again to remind myself. I think that is a great site that I can use to bookmark articles and things I would like to read about education. I already spend tons of time social bookmarking on Pinterest, but I consider those "pins" mostly just hobby oriented. I will also post the site on the fb page so i can remind myself to use it. Thanks^^
ReplyDeleteI really liked that function with Diigo, too! The idea of "social bookmarking" is a new one to me. However, I often reference material on the Internet and sometimes it's hard to remember where you came across these things. Building your own database of things that you found interesting that you can refer to later is a cool function. And Steve also mentioned using it for keeping track of your passwords and usernames. I'm interested to see how that works as well.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite new tool is definite Prezi though. I'll use that one frequently. There are a lot of things we teach at our school that I can see it being used for - Family Trees, Directions, Dollars and Cents, Describing People, etc. I've had a few good ideas for each one of those. I actually considered switching my topic for my presentation because I didn't know which one would be best suited to take advantage of Prezi. In the end, I stuck with numbers, but I'm definitely making Prezis for the other topics as well.
I agree with all of you. I just used a Prezi today in a class that I have barely gotten a rise out of all term and the students reacted quite nicely. In my head I have been referring to Wednesdays as "Lump Day" rather than Hump Day because the two classes I teach for two hours per class are both easily my to least favourite classes. They sit in their chairs like lumps and it is like pulling teeth to get them to do or say anything. These two classes rank right up there with the stick in the mud Mobile Tech class of 2006 but I digress. Prezi got their attention even though the lesson material hadn't changed. They oohed and awed at the transitions and were much more eager to participate. I am in total agreement with Analia when she says that PowerPoint just seems so dated after using Prezi.
ReplyDeleteAs for Diigo, I'm going to have to look at that site a lot more. Being able to organize the sites I view better seems like it would benefit me a lot. Although I do have a lot of book mark folders on my Chrome which I drop pages into. If Diigo doesn't clutter up my computer and is easier to use, I'm on board. I'll have look at it more thoroughly to make any further comments. Glad you enjoyed the directions Prezi. Hopefully you are referring to mine. ha
I have yet to dig into Diigo, although I did download it as soon as Steve introduced it to us in class. Hearing you talk about what a useful tool it is has gotten me to think twice about making it a go-to tool for myself as well, and we can never really have too many weapons in our arsenal, can we? Prezi is awesome huh? I have already started using it religiously in my classes at Bucheon U. and am glad to so many in our cohort have taken to it as we have. Good stuff, Sean
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