Alternatives to Power Point

As an alternative to presenting information through the standard Power Point liner slide format, you can now get creative using Prezi.com to present your information in a whole new way. Although difficult to get the hang of initially, once mastered Prezi offers countless formats to get information to various audiences. The example I am posting is from a persuasive argument where I took common misconceptions about the sport of NASCAR and addressed them with a video clip that disproves the stated misconception.  

Here is a link to my Prezi Presentation.

Teaching Sportsmanship through Comics

In many classrooms, life skills are represented around the classroom via posters that say the word, maybe a definition, and that is about it. They are there to serve as a reminder, but what good is the reminder if they are never taught? I chose to make a comic from pixton.com that serves as a visual model to help teach sportsmanship in and out of the classroom. I chose to make it of running because that is what my background is in, and as I get close to my future students they too will know this and relate to the example easier. After teaching this, I could hang in next to the more common reminder posters I referenced earlier giving students multiple forms to see and use the life skill. 

Picture Editing in the Classroom

This photograph I found from David Roberts Photography is a perfect representation of how to use worn out pictures from the past and add new life to them through creative writing assignments within the classroom. In this picture, we "know" is that there are two people in front of a camera. The task then for students would be to create life to the image by creating back stories for both the man and woman, add a setting, what ever it takes to make this the starting point to a great piece of creative writing. The problem however is that is doesn't seem right to use photos found on the internet, but that problem as been alleviated by the photo editing tool picfull.com. It is a free and very easy to use photo editing tool that can turn any photo vintage, or any other effects you may choose.

This is a photo taken of me in Greece on a trip back in 2011, however in less than five minutes it was transformed into a vintage photograph waiting for a background to be added by students. 

I was able to effortlessly transform my photo so that it looked old and out of focus, which i could to to many other photos so that every student had a different story to write. Because it took such little effort and time to create, I feel it is one of the best photo editors out there for educators given that no extra photography knowledge is needed and the final products can instantly saved to computers or e-mailed so that they can be used over and over again.