Keynote Book Trailers: Things You Do To Avoid What You Ought To Be Doing...

...but Still Look Like You're Working.

 My favorite tool lately is Keynote.  I'm on a one-woman mission to evangelize the Power Point heathens and spread the word of Keynote's total awesomeness.

I've been playing around with designing slides to look less, well, slide-like, and to mimic Prezi's cool feeling of lateral animation.  It's a great way to create booktrailers without having to mess around with video or finding 1,000 images for Animoto.

Here's the result.


It's all in how you layout the images.  They need to "bleed" off the edge, then you use a "Push" (not "Push Object!")  transition.  For example, in that opening logo, I bled the image halfway off the first slide, then matched it (in reverse) on the second slide.  You can't really see it from the second image, but it IS the same picture, so you can tell it's bleeding off the edge, even if you can't see it.  It took a bit of playing around to match them seamlessly, but not too much!

More importantly, it's  a neat trick to teach students, when you're teaching presentations and slide design.  Death to bullet points, I say!

(btw--I tried doing this in PP, and it doesn't work--though if you can figure out how to make it work there, let me know!)

Anyway, if you want to download the slides, to see how the rest of it went together, click here.

Presentation Zen Handout

ZEN Handout

Adding the Zen to PreSENtation

Is that lame?  I'm giving several workshops on Presentation Zen next week for our two PGD days.  I spent 10 hours yesterday putting the slides together (geesh!); tomorrow I'll create the handout, and post that when it's finished.  Slides are below.

I called it Presentation Zen, but I would bet money Garr has that copyrighted, so I'm trying to think of a different title I could use.  Not that he cares what some obscure LMS in Outer Mongolia is doing with his brand, I'm sure!  Should I change the "S" in presentation to a Z?  Am I being completely obsessive?

Enjoy the slides. Sorry I can't make it downloadable. Some of the photos are personal permission, rather than CC, so I can't let it float around.  But feel free to use the text or ideas!

Presentation Zen

Preparing Parents for the Digitized Classroom

As Back-to-School Night looms, this perceptive article would be a good share for your more technologically embedded teachers.  The author makes a good case for parent fears about classroom technology use (I'm somewhat abashed to admit that hadn't occurred to me.  Tech nerd that I am, I thought parents would leap on board with loud huzzahs of gratitude!)

I've completely rethought my approach as a result of the article, and will put my presentation together this weekend.  I'll post it when finished.

On another note, a few days ago I posted my presentation for the faculty library orientation, and said I would let readers know how it went.  I won't say it was a smashing success, BUT:

• The two new admin members made a point of saying they were happy to hear I believed in an active, participatory library.
• One of the faculty, while demurring about the "thrill" of listening to it, did say it was reassuring to hear I had a vision for the library.
• Best of all, three faculty members who ignored the library in the past, have come to ask for help with student projects.

Definitely well worth the time!

You Have to Train the Faculty, Too

I have a 20 minute orientation for the faculty today. I decided rather than just telling them ways the library can support them, I want to start "training" them in how to think about the library and our role in the pedagogical conversation of the school.

I want then to understand WHY including the library as an integral part of their year is not just beneficial; it's essential.

So I'm giving them a quick primer on transliteracy, conversation theory, and embedded librarianship. Yikes! I don't know how that will go over. I'll let you know. But here's my Keynote presentation.

As you can see, I'm also working on my Presentation Zen skills! Having the slide titles kind of goes against that, but I knew I'd be posting it here, and I think it helps with understanding the flow of the presentation and how the slides link.

Faculty intro

View more presentations from jerihurd

Simple Booklets: Good Potential, Not Quite There

I spent the morning playing around with Simple Booklets,  a new (as far as I can tell) 2.0 app.  I love the potential of this app for education.  It allows users to create a variety of multimedia pamphlets, posters and booklets.  Similar to Glogster, but it allows pages.  I think I'll use it for a  quick Destiny tutorial, rather than the video I planned to create.

Here is an example from the playing around I did this morning, just to show some of the features.  Using the now standard drag-and-drop interface,  I was able to embed a website (the blog), as well as a Google form survey (on page 2).  You can also add music, video and widgets, embed code and link with social media.  Cool idea, right? 

There are additional features you can buy with the "Pro" version, which is only $10/year.  Certainly a bargain!



The app is not without problems, however.

1)  I chose a yellow notebook paper background for my booklet.  As you can see, however, it's not showing.

2)  While the app offers both business and education templates,  I couldn't actually edit any of them. It may have been user error, but if so, it was user error that a relatively tech-savvy user couldn't figure out.  Not good.  Moreover, the templates themselves lack in creativity, I must say.  I would discourage students from using them.

3) While the app offers some nifty-looking badges and stickers, the text is not editable.

4)  Either the color of the arrows is stuck at an un-appealing gray, or, again, I could not figure out how to edit the color.

5.  The shadow tool syncs with the bounding box, not the object.  For example, when I added an arrow and wanted to create a shadow effect, the shadow was of the box around the arrow, not the arrow itself.

The only huge issue here is the template problem.  I will certainly use this myself,  and will offer it to students as an option for specific assignments next year.  One hopes future software updates will address some of the issues.

UPDATE: Hmmm. Apparently embedding is also an issue. It shows the first page, but you can't click through to second page. That is a BIG problem. So, really, this app is NOT ready for prime-time.

Prezi: I'm Determined to Figure This Out

I've decided I want to convert all my  lessons on Power Point to Prezi, so I've started playing around with it.  I get the gist, but I struggle in creating the path.  I can never click past the first three steps.

Anyway, I'm presenting to parents about MUN tonight, so I created a quick Prezi.  The free educator account removes the Prezi watermark, which is nice.  I also love that you can download your finished Prezi, so you don't have to rely on a good internet connection (always a big IF here in Mongolia!)

Here's my (somewhat simplistic) result.  For the two embedded groups, I wanted to zoom in on the individual phrases/skills, but gave up trying to get them in the path.