Presentations – Eveline's Blog on Education

Selecting the Social Media
When choosing the media, I first remembered seeing a digital story of another peer in ETEC565 in previous years. She was a colleague, a great friend, that I worked closely with in teaching over the last 4 years. I was very impressed with her digital story using VoiceThread. She was a great narrator, and the photos were well chosen. However, although I wanted to tell a similar story, I knew I wasn’t a great narrator. My enthusiasm lies in photos, and I decided to tell my story through a photoblog.

In another previous course, I was introduced to the presentation tool: Prezi. I have then kept this tool in mind when teaching, but never really finding the right time to use it. Some of the reasons may be that my Internet connection in China was slow, the tool was a bit time consuming to put together, and I just didn’t have the right story.

Now that my MET is almost over, I decided to give Prezi one last try. I had a story to tell – of how I got here – and I wanted to use it.

My Story
I had a lot of fun creating my story with Prezi. I first went through years and years of my photo, selecting ones that I wanted to show. I enjoyed my journey of pursuing Teaching as a career. The many teaching opportunities I had impacts the way I teach and think about teaching. I decided to log the most important turning points for me and placed it in a concept map manner on the Prezi board.

Next, I created folders to file my pictures of China, Japan, Mexico, Quebec, Dalian, and Beijing. It was not easy as some photos have been lost throughout the years. I then placed them around the skeleton story I have woven onto the Prezi board so I can choose the ones that I want to share in my story.

As mentioned before, I am not comfortable to add my own voice to my story. Instead, I borrowed the voice of the Co-op student who won the top prize in creating an SFU Co-op video on YouTube. I also told the story through text. I tried to make my text simple. I chose short phrases as I do not like reading pages and pages of text myself. I wanted to keep it in the manner of a PowerPoint presentation.

In the end, I really enjoyed the process of stringing the story together. It is one that I would like to keep and retell. I also like the features of the Prezi program – the ability to zoom in and out, the ability to change photo sizes and text sizes, and the ability to twist and turn, to keep the readers interested. I also like the option of having the Prezi audience view the presentation “automatically” and “manually” by hand. The one thing that I will probably go back and change is the photo sizes. I will probably have to go into Photoshop to make the files smaller so they will load faster onto Prezi. But all in all, I think it is a successful program, and I will even consider adding sound (music) to it in the future.

Teaching Value
I think Prezi is a powerful tool to tell a story. I just haven’t figured out how to incorporate it into a classroom yet. One of the options of this tool is that the viewer and copy the original and edit it on their own. I think it could be used as a short story presentation, or even in creating their own poems using a similar structure. However, I feel that TIME is the most important factor. I would generate a list of what should be expected in a class presentation. If the assignment has a limit to how many slides (paths) a presentation can have, and a word limit on each “slide”, then this may help guide the students in creating a presentation suitable for the class.

I feel that this tool can help students improve their presentation skills, especially ones that are weaker in spoken presentation (like myself). In a classroom setting, students also have the opportunity to speak while presenting – for students who are strong speakers. I would definitely like to incorporate this tool in my classroom someday, or at least, introduce this as another option for students to present. It would certainly be more interesting than the standard PowerPoint show.

More on Assessment

After reading Gibbs & Simpson, I feel that assessment of coursework is fairer than one final exam. I believe that the work and effort that students put into their work should be taken into account when giving them their final mark. For example, I don’t believe that the provincial exam should be worth 40% of the entire grade for English 12. And even it was, I don’t believe that there should be a required 15% maximum deviation between the course mark and the provincial mark. The course is so much more than just multiple choices and 3 essays. What happens to marking the participation and the discussion in class? What about students learning to develop their thoughts on certain topics? What about presenting information in a creative way through multimedia (as per requirement on the PLO – prescribed learning outcomes)? Where does this come in on the exam? Just because it is difficult to mark various media products on the provincial exam doesn’t mean that keeping it simple is an accurate assessment of the student’s ability and knowledge of the entire English 12 curriculum.

Assessments that Worked:

Writing Portfolio

I think this is a great way to assess student’s growth in their writing. The students should be able to look back and see their improvement. And if each piece of writing has some feedback to help the student to progress, then it is the student’s responsibility to review and reflect on their own writing to improve their work. It will become apparent to the student if the same comments are given on each assignment that they have not put in the effort to improve.

Timely Feedback

According to Gibbs & Simpson, feedback should be immediate or at least soon after the assignment has been collected. However, immediate feedback is difficult, especially if students have written several pieces that week. I will always prioritize and give constructive feedback on the most important piece of writing. It is sometimes heartbreaking when students do not read the comments and just put the assignment aside. Usually, I do see the marked work inside their binders, but I have also seen work from other classes that only provide marks with no feedback shoved inside the desk or thrown into the trashcan. I think feedback should acknowledge the students’ achievements on their work, their efforts, and gentle advices on how they can improve.

Relating this to Moodle

I think the feedback on the Moodle quiz is great for self-study. I remember doing something similar with a Business course that I took in my undergraduate years. I followed the textbook and had the website quiz as supplement to assess my knowledge of the material. It was a very good way to review before the exam. Another advantage for immediate feedback from Moodle quizzes is to alleviate the stress from teachers marking the same quizzes manually. When these questions are answered automatically, teachers can then focus on the harder ones that do require their knowledge, expertise, and judgement. However, although I feel that the ability to provide immediate feedback is advantageous, this method should only be for students to review and self-assess their knowledge on the material and not be used as a final exam.

Challenges with Assessment

Blogs

Blogs are hard to assess when marks are seen as subjective, especially in a subject like English. How does one go about assessing Blogs write-ups? The purpose of having students write blogs was for them to receive immediate feedback from their peers (rather than just from one person, the teacher). Blogging was used to encourage students to practice writing, be reflective, share their opinions with peers, and also follow criteria. Students received guidelines of what is appropriate and what constructive feedback should look like. Overall, the blog activity was successful in the sense that the goals for students to write more and share opinions were met. Giving students a mark though, was much harder, and an assessment rubric was used.

Presentations

Assessment on group presentations was always difficult – for both the students and the teacher. In my class, even though I tell my students that I focus on what they “think” about the material more than how technological savvy they are in their presentation, students still spend more time on the “wow” factor than the “content”. Even when we go over the assessment rubric for the assignment, with content as the bulk of the marks, the students will always be disappointed. They complain about how the marks do not reflect the time they spent on making the video. When students see that their effort does not generate a higher mark, they are less motivated or innovative in their next presentation. Is that what I really want?