The Power of PowerPoints

Interested in actively engaging your students?  What about mastering key content standards?  Then, think about opening up your Microsoft Office tab and taking another look at PowerPoint.

Powerpoints provide visual stimulus that students crave.  When used correctly, the presentations bring engagement to difficult to master standards, and they can provide fun to dull concepts.  PowerPoints are worth the time because they will be enjoyed and reused over and over again.

Here are some tips when using pre-made PowerPoints in the classroom:

            Is it BORING?  Does it teach what it needs to? 

            Are there errors in grammar/spelling?

            Is there enough guided practice?  

            Does the presentation go far enough—does it provide tricky
            problems/common student errors and give solutions?

            Make sure the presentation's answers are correct!

Here are some tips for making great PowerPoints for your classroom:

Begin with the essentials:  standard being taught, explanations, examples, guided practice, and independent practice.  The content of the presentation is the key!

                 If you’re using graphic organizers, provide students          
                 visual representations to they know exactly what is expected.

                       Minimal text is best. You don’t want to overpower your students 
                too much on the screen. 
                  Stick with Windows fonts.  Increase the font size.  Bigger is better!

Get a clicker!  You want to be able to roam your classroom and see how your students are progressing.  These are available for under $20.00 at your local office supply store.

Don’t use the pre-created text boxes and bullets.  They are set up for business presentations not teaching.  Find the “insert text box” button…and use it!

Use clip art and animations sparingly, and make sure your students can relate to them.

When it comes to video, sounds, and eye popping words, keep it simple!  For instance, the typewriter animation where words come out one letter at a time is cool, once, and then it becomes annoying.

When choosing colors of background and font, use as much contrast as possible, and keep it the same throughout.

Edit, edit, edit! Check your Powerpoint for errors several times before you use it.  You don’t want a student calling you out in class, but, if they do…reward them!

Be thematic. Students gravitate towards thematic Powerpoints.  It makes them cohesive and memorable.

When finished with your lesson, take a moment to write yourself a note on how the presentation went.  List any mistakes and add any needed practice.  As you close, rename your presentation and use the revised date.

Powerpoints aren’t rocket science, and they are easy to do, so go out there and impress your students and yourself! 

Interactive Whiteboard Reasources

Interactive whiteboards have become more prevalent in classrooms. These whiteboards offer an alternative method of teaching by physically engaging students. The touch sensitive screen on interactive whiteboards provides teachers with a learning tool that can bring an entire class together. 

Why Use an Interactive Whiteboard?

ESL teachers can use online literacy activities and games that have been pre-made (See suggested links below) and specially designed for interactive whiteboard lessons. However, if a teacher is interested in creating their own activities they could try using "Microsoft Word" and "Paint". Using them on the whiteboard, students will become familiar with these common computer programs and are able to show creativity in their work. Some literacy activities the teacher can create with the students are: 

1. Cloze activities (fill in the blanks).
2. Highlighting ("Paint" highlight pen).
3. Handwriting ("Paint" with writing pen).
4. Creative writing as a class.
5. Brainstorming.
6. Matching. 

Multiple Intelligences and Multi-media

Multiple Intelligences and Multi-media
Howard Gardner, Professor of Harvard University and author of Frames of Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1983) from Multimedia Book, ITTE wrote that:

• Seven or more "multiple intelligences" that are of equal importance in human beings and develop at different times and in different ways in different individuals.
• Multi-media can go along way to addressing these intelligences, much more than traditional teaching methods.
• Below is a list of the intelligences and the technology tools that can be used to teach to them

Verbal/Linguistic intelligence: The ability to think, communicate, and create through words both in speech and in writing.

• Computer software which allows young children to write and illustrate their own stories before their fine motor skills are developed enough to allow them to do so by hand.
• Word processing software stimulates learners to interact more closely with their work.
• Audio and video recording can give students instant feedback on their story-telling skills and can help them develop them further.
• Multimedia software helps students produce multimedia reports.
• Telecommunications programs link students who correspond in writing.

Logical/mathematical intelligences: Memorize and perform mathematical operations, ability to think mathematically, logically, and analytically and to apply that understanding to problem solving.

• Multimedia products that graphically illustrate physics concepts.
  • Providing challenging visual/spatial tasks which develop mathematical and logical thinking .
  • Develop higher-order mathematical thinking by making abstract ideas concrete.

Visual/spatial intelligence: The ability to understand the world through what we see and imagine and to express ideas through the graphic arts.

• "Paint" programs that allow students who are unskilled with paper and brush create art on computer screens.
• Databases of art work.
• Desktop publishing.
• Camcorders to create documentaries.
• Internet links to museums and virtual tours.

Bodily/kinesthetic intelligence: The ability to learn through physical coordination and dexterity and the ability to express oneself through physical activities.

• Educational games which challenge fine motor coordination while developing logical thinking skills and mastery over abstractions.
• Construction of lego robots and program their movement through the computer.
• Electronic fieldtrips - programs that allow students to interact electronically with a scientist who is exploring the depths of the Mediterranean or the inside of a volcano.

Musical intelligence: The ability to understand, appreciate, perform, and create music by voice or instruments or dance.

• Students can hum into a synthesizer and make it sound like any instrument they want.
• Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) makes it possible to make music on an electronic keyboard, which can be made to sound like any instrument and then can be orchestrated electronically.
• Interactive presentations of renowned classical music let students understand music on many different levels; listening to it, seeing the score as it is played, hearing individual instruments played alone, reviewing biographical material about the composer and learning about the music’s historical and cultural backgrounds.

Interpersonal intelligence: The ability to work cooperatively with other people and to apply a variety of skills to communicate with and understand others.

• Clusters of students working together on computers learn more than individual students working alone.
• Electronic networks linking students with their peers within the community and around the world.
• Lumaphones allow students to see a picture of the person with whom they are speaking.

Intrapersonal intelligence: The ability to understand, bring to consciousness, and express one’s own inner world of thoughts and emotions.

• Multimedia gives teachers the tools to turn the classroom into centers of student-directed inquiry.
• Technology offers tools for thinking more deeply, pursuing curiosity, and exploring and expanding intelligence as students build "mental models" with which they can visualize connections between ideas on any topic.
• Individual growth plans, developed jointly by the student, parents and teacher can encourage the development of intrapersonal intelligence. Technology supports such plans with electronic records, videotaped interviews, and multimedia portfolios of student work.

Connecting Students to a Changing World
The following quotes were taken from Connecting Students to a Changing World: A Technology Strategy for Improving Mathematics and Science Education. A Statement by the Research and Policy Committee of the Committee for Economic Development 1995:
"Fortunately, the same rapid technological changes that have made these new workplace competencies so important and greater knowledge of mathematics and science so critical also provide new and effective tools to help raise the knowledge and skills of teachers and the achievement of students." (page 4)
"Currently available technologies, the most important of which are computers, communications systems (including Internet connections), and interactive videodisk and CD-ROM systems, provide a learning environment in which problem solving and intellectual inquiry can flourish." (page 4)
"The technology also allows students to work at their own pace and encourages them to take initiative and learn independently." (page 4)
Better Students Through Technology
Visit the site http://www.cast.org/stsstudy.html and learn more about the following:

• The Role of Online Communications in Schools: A National Study" is a report of a study conducted by CAST (Center for Applied Special Technology), and independent research and development organization, and sponsored by the Scholastic Network and Council of the Great City Schools.The study compared the work of 500 students in fourth-grade and sixth-grade classes in seven urban school districts (Chicago, Dayton, Detroit, Memphis, Miami, Oakland, and Washington, DC) with and without online access. Results show significantly higher scores on measurements of information management, communication, and presentation of ideas for experimental groups with online access than for control groups with no online access.

Is technology making an impact on education?

"Technology is making a significant, positive impact on education. Important findings in these studies include:

• Educational technology as demonstrated a significant positive effect on achievement. Positive effects have been found for all major subject areas, in preschool through higher education, and for both regular education and special needs students. Evidence suggests that interactive video is especially effective when the skills and concepts to be learned have a visual component and when the software incorporates a research-based instructional design. Use of online telecommunications for collaboration across classrooms in different geographic locations has also been show to improve academic skills.
• Education technology has been found to have positive effects on student attitudes toward learning and on student self-concept. Students felt more successful in school, were more motivated to learn and have increased self-confidence and self-esteem when using computer-based instruction. This was particularly true when the technology allowed learners to control their own learning.
• The level of effectiveness of educational technology is influenced by the specific student population, the software design, the teacher’s role, how the students are grouped, and the level of student access to the technology.
• Students trained in collaborative learning, had higher self esteem and student achievement.
• Introducing technology into the learning environment has been shown to make learning more student-centered, to encourage cooperative learning, and to stimulate increased teacher/student interaction.
• Positive changes in the learning environment brought about by technology are more evolutionary than revolutionary. These changes occur over a period of years, as teachers become more experienced with technology.
• Courses for which computer-based networks were use increased student-student and student-teacher interaction, increased student-teacher interaction with lower-performing students, and did not decrease the traditional forms of communication used. Many student who seldom participate in face-to-face class discussion become more active participants online.
• Greater student cooperation and sharing and helping behaviors occurred when students used computer-based learning that had students compete against the computer rather than against each other.
• Small group collaboration on computer is especially effective when student have received training in the collaborative process.

Newest Strategies For ESL Instruction

For some time it was unknown to what extent technology would be beneficial to ESL teaching methods, but recent studies have painted an overall good picture of the newest techniques being used in English as Second Language learning environments.

The generally agreed upon conclusion is that educators should integrate multimedia into their lesson plans as much as possible. The reason for this is that multimedia has been shown to activate both sides of the brain, and the study of foreign languages has been shown to be most successful when the whole brain is used. Therefore, there are both practical and scientific reasons to incoporate computer software and Internet use in lesson plans.

But in the process of integrating technology into the classroom, teachers should not forgo solid lesson plans and cutting edge, interactive instruction. Innovative technology is vitally useful, but it will never replace the value of a powerful teacher-student relationship

 
Here are a few ways to combine some of the newer technological applications with top-notch teaching:

Why Use the Newest Strategies For ESL Instruction?

1. 1

   Utilizing the powerful medium of the Internet

   It's been known for well over a decade that the Internet increases language use and helps people to learn second languages by encouraging students to use the newly learned language patterns in their daily lives. Internet interactions can also help to simulate real life discussions and linguistic and semantic idiosyncrasies related to negotiation, information requests, and persuasion. Because of social media, the Internet has now expanded to encompass much, if not all, of our daily correspondences, which makes it all the more useful in ESL learning.
   Because language is not just words alone, but a highly complex network of syntactical relationships, the Internet's presentation of art and media and its demand of keyboard skills, file storage, and search engine entries, helps with both technical and conceptual language mastery. Additionally, the Internet helps to expand and evolve the interaction between the teacher and the student, helping education become more focused on the student. The Internet also facilitates collaborative projects which are good for the social aspects of language education. Finally, the Internet provides a wealth of resources for both students and teachers.
   
2. 2

   Using educational tools and software applications

   There are a variety of different tools out there that can help with many educational needs, ESL learning not withstanding. A number of teachers are utilizing interactive gadgets such as digital whiteboards, which allow for a more one to one presentation of information. There's also a great deal of software and online communities that can be beneficial to both teachers and students who are engaged in language learning.
   Voxopop, a voice-based e-learning tool allows teachers to create online real-time talkgroups based on voice, rather than text. This would be an excellent resource for focusing primarily on learning to speak English. For the text side of it you can try Visuwords, which is an online graphical dictionary.
   Visuwords would help more with writing and reading. These services have been utilized by people studying for ESL and TOEFL degrees. There are a number of educational applications that serve all-purpose needs for teachers and students. The app Wallwisher allows educators and students to collaborate on projects through a shared online board. It has proven especially useful for students who pursuing online education.
   Other programs, including Photopeach, Voicethread, and Community Clips allow students to use visual media, such as video, audio, and pictures to create stories, break down lesson plans and create digital dialogues. These programs have the potential to be particularly useful to students learning English as a second language, as they are given a neutral intermediary that can break down initial language barriers.
   
3. 3

   Creating strategies for better, more efficient learning

   At a certain point, the onus lands back on the educator. Sometimes the success of the student depends on the strength of the teaching he or she receives. ESL educators must create strong game plans. The need to use comprehensible gestures and body language to impart meaning to new students; create visual lessons (possibly with the aid of the applications listed above) using graphics, maps media, and semantic storytelling; produce relationships between new data and prior knowledge—harness a student's personal and cultural narrative; and encourage cooperative learning styles that facilitate students working together and sharing unusual words, idioms, and phrases. The should also allow for alternative assessments of skill levels by offering tests of oral, visual and physical (acting it out) knowledge.
   It can't be stressed enough the importance of encouraging the students to socialize and talk to each other. Whereas in other subjects this may be distracting, in language learning students need to absorb words and phrases in a number of different dialects, contexts, slang words, proverbs, and difficult pronunciations. This should help you avoid the common problems that ESL teachers confront in the classroom, which include students frequently reverting to their first language, students being unsure of what they're supposed to be learning, and students being too dependent on the teacher.
   Teachers should also remember not to echo the students, as it cuts into their talking time and adds to their dependency on the teacher's affirmation. A better way to interact is by adding helpful sentence completion. If a student cannot think of a phrase, the teacher should work on redirecting the tail-end of a sentence in a way that still makes the student finish his thought.In some respects, ESL, TESL and other forms of language learning are no different than other subjects such as mathematics, literature, chemistry, or business.
   

Educators must still experiment with new teaching strategies and educational tools and software platforms in order to maximize productivity and ensure a constructive relationship between the teacher and the student and between the student and his/her peers. But there are aspects of learning a foreign language that are particularly challenging, which is why immersing the classroom with Internet access, digital whiteboards, and plethora of applications and talkgroups is an excellent way for progressive educators to start constructing a game plan for top notch ESL learning.

Types of Games to Use in Classrooms

Students love learning when it's simplified, and games make learning easy and fun. Here are some tips on types of games to use in classrooms:

1. Student Made 
Students get to shine when they create games that are used in their classes because they implement their own versions of games. Every game listed here could be made by students. If worried about time or educational connections, have students make games that count as formal assessment. 

2. Bingo
There are countless ways to use bingo in classrooms. For example, I created an award-winning bingo game based upon people from American history. The boards have historical people’s faces on them, and the clues are all standards-based facts. Try math bingo with numbers and clues, which result from problems students solve mentally or on scratch paper. Bingo can be used for phonics, vocabulary, spelling, sounds of letters, and more. Bingo is a game that can be specifically designed for any subject matter.  

3. Memory

Memory is a simplified version of bingo. It works great with phonics and simple math expressions. Also, it is wonderful for ESL students: use images and words, spelling and phonics, and states with capitals. Be sure to laminate the cards. 


4. Hangman
Hangman might just be the easiest game to play.  Use Hangman when introducing new topics of study or as clues for school assembly topics. Hangman can be great as a get to know students activity. It can introduce book titles for upcoming units. Have students come up to the board and pick a word from a word bank. Hangman is a fantastic time filler.  

5. Around the World
Around the World works best with a set of flashcards--math,  sight words,  spelling, vocabulary. Have all students stand. The first student stands next to the student behind him. Show a flashcard. The student with the correct answer moves on. As a bonus, if a student makes it all the way around the room then they get play against the teacher. “What, beat Mrs. Pak?” Since I’m the teacher and I answer the fastest, I give the student three tries to beat me. If I get beat, then the next time we play Around the World, the student gets to be the teacher. 

6. Get Out of Here  
Get Out of Here is a fun game to play before the end of the day, before recess, or before lunch. Stand in the doorway with either a set of Trivial Pursuit questions or flashcards. To get out of the classroom, a student must answer three questions correctly. If not, the student heads to the back of the line and starts over. For students who answer three questions correctly, they get out of the classroom earlier than others.  

7. Jeopardy
There are lots of middle and high school teachers who utilize Jeopardy-type games. It’s great to use as a study tool before a big test. It works well when preparing for the end of units, midterms, or finals. Also, it can be used as a project for small groups of students. Let them create their own Jeopardy categories, clues, and answers so the whole class can play together. This game is perfect for arts, history, literture, science, and so on.

8. Fast Facts

Give students 100 simple math problems and a limited amount of time to solve them. The idea is to get students to understand math problems so well that solving them becomes rote. Use 100 problems and five minutes for third graders; fourth graders get four minutes; fifth graders get three minutes; sixth graders get one minute. Also, Fast Facts can be applied to pronunciation or spelling of words. Pair students, give one a timer, and the other has a list of 100 words to say correctly. Use the same time structure. Fast Facts is quick, easy, and a great way to increase memorization skills. 

9. Scavenger Hunts
Scavenger hunts are fun but take some planning to set up. The great thing is they can be used for almost every subject. Go through classroom materials beforehand to create questions. Use fill-in-the-blanks, pictures, dates, people, or anything students need to know before units. Then, put students into small groups to search textbooks, encyclopedias, online sites, and around the classroom for the clues. Get other classrooms involved and have students  visit to find clues. 

Using games in the classroom makes learning easier, and time moves quickly when learning is fun. 

Marinela Cinari & Anisa Koni presentation

marinela cinari & anisa koni

Visual/spatial learning

Learning,
for visual-spatial learners,
takes place all at once,
with large chunks of information grasped in intuitive leaps,
rather than in the gradual accretion of isolated facts,
small steps or habit patterns gained through practice.
For example, they can learn all of the multiplication facts as a related set in a chart much easier and faster than memorizing each fact independently." ¹

Organizing:

• The visual/spatial perspective is the organizing principle
  Perfectionism for visual/spatial learners is a well-ordered and -designed space with each object in its place and appealingly so.
  They are uncomfortable, even restless, encountering incomplete or unsettled situations
• With an instinctive sense of balance and completeness
  they can tell when something is out of alignment, or not truly horizontal or vertical.
  They are adept at working with mirror images and rotating images in their minds, and strive to bring order by constructing, arranging, color coding, or fixing things

Observing/experiencing:

• Visual/spatial learners are good at seeing the "big picture"of both simple and complex systems. Overviews or summaries are their specialty, often at the expense of remembering details or constructing sequences
• Personal presentation (dress, grooming, even gestures) is important
  Their own presentation/dress is as important as what they notice about others. They establish eye contact when speaking, though can be distracted by their surroundings. So also background sounds can disrupt their listening skills, and they often doodle during lectures, at meetings, etc.
• They prefer to read and work under subdued or natural lightingand in comfortable conditions, and are uncomfortable with glare/harsh lighting, rough clothing, drafts, and temperature extremes

Learning strategies:

• Focus on the learning objectives of the classMeet with the teacher to understand and apply these to your situation
• Request advanced organizersto help you relate to new material with what you already know
• Look for opportunities to work with, manipulate and/or engage new material
  • Hands-on approach manipulating forms or objects
  • Using visual clues or landmarks rather than (verbal) sequential steps
• Look for visual/spatial dimensions in your study:
  Example: geometry has more visual components than algebra in mathematics;
  physics rather than chemistry in science;
  graphic applications in computer science and technology fields;
  studio arts in the creative arts, architecture, mechanics, aeronautics, engineering, urban planning
• Seek out independent and open-ended studies,problem-based learning, case studies, or ways you can be more active with the material to be learned and have alternative strategies of assessment or demonstrating learning

Study habits

• Always have the "big picture" before you especially when studying its parts or details
• When trying to remember things,
  close your eyes to get a picture or image of the information to facilitate recall or use flash cards with limited information so that you can picture details and concepts
• Once a concept is grasped,Practice applying the information to new situations or progressive stepped learning
  in place of routine drill and practice that will challenge your attention span
• Use mind or concept maps (rather than outlines)to organize writing assignments to visualize ideas, their connections, sequences, and conclusions
  Brainstorm using illustrations, mind maps and models
• Look for alternative sources of visual material when you studyvideos, overheads and PowerPoint demonstrations, graphs, maps, and media programs

Using technology:

• Take advantage of the visual elementsof the computer in studying or locating information
• Take advantage of stop/start/replayin mediated programs
• Produce your own mediated programsin place of written reports
• Develop and apply graphical and/or three dimensional modelsto understand new material

For lectures

• Avoid visual distractions 
  in classroom seating (windows, open doorways, etc.)
• Look for opportunities to break up lectureswith reflective though active exercises (question-write-pair-share) and brain-storming sessions
• Illustrate your noteswith images and graphs
• Review and organize your notes after classwith concept maps
• Keep and organize a file of handoutsand summary documents after lectures for review
• Request "guided notes" or blanks in handoutsthat provide you with cues for completion

Reading text books

• Look through titles, charts, graphs, and pictures
  to get an overall idea of the content before reading a chapter
• Use color highlighters
  to emphasize important material
• Write or illustrate in the margins 
  to emphasize important material

Test taking/assessment

• Write out/illustrate steps in a sequenceas a checklist to keep on task
• Think of visual cues and associations in remembering information
  (You may also see the location of an answer rather than the answer itself!)
• If you are challenged by standardized and/or timed tests,
  meet with your teacher to discuss alternatives for assessment
• Essay and/or short answer tests, or class presentations/demonstrations
  may be optional assessment techniques