My digital story is a bit of history and news about the Northern Environmental Action Team (NEAT). NEAT is a not-for-profit group focused on waste reduction and conservation education. We work as a team to get action done. We work with people and groups, not against them and we are celebrating our 20th anniversary this year! I’m proud to be the vice-president of NEAT as we serve the entire Peace River Regional District.
The story is done through the Prezi tool and is available at http://prezi.com/126760/. There is a bit of media so it may take some time if you are on a slower connection and a few links out to other media (song) that couldn’t be added.
Reflection
Why did you choose this particular tools?
I had seen a presentation using Prezi in the past for an environmental start up, I think, and I was impressed. I had filed it away in the dark recesses thinking that I would use it sometime. Fortunately this assignment and Alan Levine’s list gave me the opportunity. It was honestly an aha moment playing around with the sample Prezi’s and I thought that it was “neat”! From there I thought of telling a NEAT Story. “Another NEAT idea” is a tag line that we use in our media campaigns and it is said more than enough during board meetings when someone has a NEAT idea. From now on when you look at something environmental that is neat, you’ll think of us I guarantee it. Anyway I digress. I needed a tool that was able to include text, images, and video in a presentation format that wasn’t the usual boring keynote/powerpoint and Prezi provided that.
How did the tool impact the manner in which you told your story (perhaps in a way that is different had you just used text or related the story using your voice)?
Playing with the showcase Prezis I enjoyed how a logical grouping of information was displayed using images, text, and video. When you were done consuming the information you would move on to the next frame flying through the space. In a couple I noticed that as you would fly from frame to frame you would fly over other pieces of information that would queue it up in your mind. I didn’t use this technique in my presentation but would likely add it in for other curricular projects.
I really like how the tool allows you to zoom in on the media objects and move around as you choose without having to follow the provided path. This would allow students or readers a little freedom in how they consume the information.
How might you use such tools in your own teaching to produce materials for students?
I would love to create a life cycle of a cell using this tool, or perhaps how food enters a cell and is used and disposed of. I really enjoyed teaching an activity in Science 10 called the Cell City where students would take up all the blackboard/whiteboard space in the class and draw a very large cell with analagous cellular functions to what you’d need to run a city. It was such a fun and powerful activity that I think this tool would make a marvelous digital representation of their works. They would have to explain each function and the analogous components of the city.
I could see many processes in sciences explained very well with Prezi. One downfall of the tool is that it does not allow for embededing as far as I can currently see. It does allow for linking and downloading of a zipped offline presentation which includes a flash application or a packaged exe which could be added to a CMS/LMS.
How might students be given access to the same authoring tools?
I took a considerable amount of time learning this tool. It wasn’t difficult however it was just a very new way of working with digital media to me. Since the free version of prezi is online only, students would likely need access to a lab for several blocks if not a week of time to build a substantial presentation. The other option is to purchase offline licenses but they would still need to be loaded on a sufficient number of accessible computers for the students. An advantage of the tool that I did not get a chance to try was that it allowed for multiple people to edit the project. Not sure if it was at the same time or not as with a wiki or google docs.
What kind of impact would you expect to see in your students in terms of motivation, creativity, or any other characteristics?
This tool has a lasting novelty as it is a very different way to present digital media. Also it allows for different creators to come up with some very exciting visual effects with their media.
Students would be able to show their understanding of the topic studied in a variety of ways to a variety of levels. Final products could range from very simple to complex in terms of the media and the organization of the objects used. Some very creative prezi’s would create a picture out of their media objects that when you zoomed in or followed the path it would show you minute content that you never saw but is an integrale part. Having some exemplars to share with students with what you expect and where you could go is handy.
I think a story telling approach is a powerful way to share knowledge. Much more engaging than a stand and deliver methodology. In my experience teaching the functions of the cell having students teach their peers using the Cell City activity’s analogy provided lasting and powerful learning as the students were telling a story that they had essentially written from their own experiences.
On reflection, all of my most successful experiences in teaching sciences revolve around great storytelling. In the macroscopic scientific world it is often good enough to show and let students experience the results, however in physics for example we need to explain the forces and process at work which is never something you see directly. Being able to explain what you don’t see is key to success in sciences. The telling of the story and the retelling by the students is most important. The Prezi tool allows for an engaging way for students to retell the story in very exciting and creative ways.
A couple of references I looked up while writing the reflection that inspired:
Heo, Heeok (2004). Inquiry on storytelling for the web-based environmental learning environment. Retrieved July 13, 2009, ERIC Document ED485140
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=ED485140
Brown, K & J (2002-11-12). How I Learned the Importance of Storytelling in Environmental Education. Retrieved July 15, 2009, from Storyteller.net Web site: http://www.storyteller.net/articles/90
Jarrod Bell