1. Powerful Presentations for Kids Script
1. Hello, I am Heather Johnson. I am a 3rd
grade LanguageArts and Social
Studies teacher for Richmond Public Schools. I haveover 15 years of
experience in the education field, and have had the amazing opportunity to
teach in many wonderfulschooldistricts around the country including
Watertown City Schools in upstate NY, Clark County Schools in Las Vegas,
Nevada, Hamilton County Schools in Ohio, Union Public Schools in Tulsa,
Oklahoma and I havebeen a Nutrition and breastfeeding educator for
Cornell University in NY. I am currently working on my Master’s Degree at
ODUto become a schoollibrarian as my passion is teaching children the
love and power of books and reading. (1 min)
2. Today we are going to talk about some amazing presentation tools that you
can use with your students for somewonderfuland fun technology
enhanced presentations in your classrooms. Smore, infographics, Big Huge
Labs, Blabberize, and Powtoons. Show of hands…How many peoplehave
ever heard of these or are already using these in their classrooms? Point
out (if there are any) we have experts among us! (1min)
3. If you are anything like me, you probably use the old poster board student
presentations. What do presentations look like in your classroomtoday?
Have a few people share. (3 mins)
4. We are so blessed in today’s world with many different options for
students to create presentations that are a far cry fromour days in school.
We have somegreat tools and apps right at our fingertips to help kids take
their presentations from boo…to bam! How many of you want to see your
kids faces light up when it’s their turn to present? How many of us want to
see the restof the studentbody engaged and interested rather than bored
and distracted! Great! That’s what we are going to talk about today! (1
min)
5. Smoreis a tool I was introduced to in my LIBS 642 courseat ODU. I used it
to create a Mother GooseFlyer. The reasons I like Smoreso much are that
1. It’s easy to use, 2. Itoffers great color and background options to make
the presentation visually appealing, 3. it auto saves as you work on it (How
many times haveyou forgotto hit saveon something? Ugh), and 4. it’s web
based. I can access it anywhereI havea computer or device. (1 min)
2. 6. Our kids are really capable Little people. I believe Putting kids in
charge/delegating responsibilities is the best way to show them that they
are leaders! By providing leadership opportunities for students we are
giving them tools for success. Smorecan help us do that too! A couple of
ideas I had for these opportunities were 1. Create a classroomnewspaper
with Smore. Choose two different students each week to be contributors.
It’s hosted online (like a blog) so the link can easily be mailed out and
parents/kids/families can check out what’s new in our classrooms each
week. (Of courseyou will want to moderate this). Another possibleidea
for using smorein combination with leadership opportunities would be to
let the students create flyers. Need a back to school night flyer? Have the
kids create it! Whatbetter way to get parents invested than to have their
children invested! (2 mins)
7. I told you that I made a mother goose flyer for my Children’s Lit class. I
took this idea and decided I could modify it to fit the needs and abilities of
my students. I am always trying to generate “book buzz” in my classroom.
So I thought, Book flyers…Smorecan be used for the students to create a
book buzz poster/flyer after they have read a book. I will ask them to write
a brief synopsis, givetheir opinion, and rate the book on a 5-star scale.
Students can include pictures fromthe book jacket as well. I plan to house
the URL’s in a shared folder so all my students can access them and read
about different books to help them choosewhatto read next. (2mins)
8. ClassroomIntroductions. Every year wetry and come up with ways to do
these, Smoreis a great way to jump starttechnology right away and
present ourselves in a highly visualand written way!(1 mins)
9. What are your thoughts? Turn and talk to a partner about other ideas you
can come up with to use with Smore…I willallow time to sharea few with
the group. (3mins)
10.Big Huge Labs is another one of my favorite sites to use with kids. I like Big
huge labs because of its ease and kid friendliness, and because it offers so
many different ideas and options of things to create. (1 min)
11.This is the Web page, as you can see fromthis screenshotI took (only some
of the ideas are seen here as they continue down the page), there are a ton
of ideas. FromMovie posters to magazinecovers to puzzlemakers, you
justhave tons of options. (1 min)
3. 12.I was inspired by the magazine covers to create Biography Magazinecovers.
I did this with my 3rd
gradeclass this past schoolyear when this was a still a
3rd
grade SOL But now, we can connect to second grade SOL’s. My students
were so excited to create these. We began by doing our research, and
organizing our information. Then I was able to teach students how to use
photos fromthe internet responsibly by finding ones that werelabeled for
reuse, then I let them go…They created their covers and presented them on
their chosen person. (I apologizefor the difficulty reading the words on the
covers, the kids are 8, and this was my first time using this with them and
what I’velearned fromthe experience is that I need to talk to them about
proper color and font choices for the backgrounds they choose) This was a
good learning opportunity! (2 mins)
13. Another Idea to use with Big Huge Labs is creating Sequence/procedural
text writing & puzzlemaking. Practice writing your step by step guides of
how to…Then if a student chooses How to makeLemonade for example, as
their writing piece, have them locate a picture and create a puzzlewith a
pic of lemonade. A second writing piece could even be done fromthis by
having students write out the procedures for putting the puzzles together.
Print, cut out, and place in a baggy! Voila! An interactive activity to bring a
lesson to life! (1 min)
14.Book Character trading cards….Weall know aboutPokemon trading cards
and baseball cards. Why not flip the script on this and create book
character cards?!After reading a story students can create a character card
with descriptions & details about the characters. Hold a character museum
day, allow students to show off their cards and talk about book characters
with each other! 2 mins)
15.Map making. I use Social studies interactive notebooks in my classroom,
and I am always looking for new and fun things to add to them. Big Huge
Labs can help students create maps of the places they’ve studied, print and
glue into notebooks…greatconnectivity projectto get kids invested in
knowing whereplaces are and locating them on a map. (1 min)
16.Sharetime…turn & talk with your partner. Sharesome ideas you have for
using Big HugeLabs ( 2 mins)
17.Blabberize is a silly but fun audio-visualtool that can get students engaged
and energized about creating presentations. It’s a great way to integrate
4. technology into the classroom, it’s easy to useand best of all its FREE! And
we all love FREE!! (1 min)
18. Here is a link to check out blabberize, lets take a quick look, I think you’ll
find it pretty funny. Click link to show video about blabberize(1 min)
19.I used blabberize with my 3rd
graders during a poetry unit in May this past
year. We studied many different types of poetry, students wrotetheir own
and then, we used blabberize to make them come to life. Listen and watch
as we take a look at one students completed blabberized poem about a cat.
(it’s a little hard to hear but she did such a great job). Next time I think it
would be better to haveseparate place outside of the roomto record. The
background noisemakes it pretty tough to understand. Click video to share
a student poetry sample. (1 min)
20.Vocabulary development is crucial in school. We work hard everyday to
build that vocab. A great way to do this might be to useblabberize. Give
each student one or two vocab words. Havethem create their blabberized
vocab and then watch as a class. You will have a wholeset of words in just
a few mins! (1 min)
21.Blabberize could even be a collaborative learning opportunity. Have
students in an older grade pair up with students in a younger grade. Have
the older kids teach and utilize the technology to help younger ones record
their stories, poems, spelling words etc.… (1 min)
22.Sharetime…turn & talk sharesomeideas about what you might be able to
do with blabberizein your classrooms 2 mins)
23.Infographics, whatis that? That was something I did not know the answer
to until recently. An infograph is justa fancy way to say a poster with
relevant information on it. I like infographs becausethey are a clear visual
explanation about something . They offer context to the words and
descriptions. (1 min)
24. I was introduced to 3 sites to useto create info graphics slidely, Canva,
and picktochart They are pretty easy to use but you will need to take some
time to familiarize yourself with them prior to using them with your
students so that you can get the best outcomes and help to troubleshoot
any issues that may arise. (1 min)
25.Allow students to create an infographic to display conceptual
understandings in a visual manner. Math can be a great opportunity for
5. kids to show their understanding in a visual way. We all know that 5=5=5,
but having students create an infograph to show that concept can be a
great way to integrate technology and solidify understanding. (1 min)
26.Sequencing is an important concept for students. Using infographs to show
sequential understanding of a story or creating a story map is a fun and
interesting way for kids to visualizeand show their understanding (1 min)
27.Science is another great opportunity to use infographs in the
classroom….using infographics to presentscience concepts learned in an
organized and visualmanner will add spark and pizzaz to student
presentations.(1 min)
28.Sharetime…turn & talk, share someideas you have for using infographs
with some of the people around you. ( 2 mins)
29.Powtoons is a really great site that allows kids to create animated videos.
It’s mostly free(but you can for a price get upgrades if you choose) Kids
love cartoons and I think they will really enjoy the opportunities to create
these informational and fun little videos to useas presentations. (1 min)
30.You could usePowtoons to create Interactivebook reports…integrating
technology with understanding. One third grade SOL is that we must
present oralreports using visual media! Powtoons makes this a great
opportunity. (1 min)
31. Powtoons would also be another great tool for class introductions…They
can even be used as new students come into your classroomfor a great
orientation to the class. (1 min)
32.Book Trailers. Kids connecting with literature and each other is such an
important part of our everyday in the classroom. Usepowtoons to create
book trailers or commercials for books that students have read. A great
way to drum up interest in new books to add to their “book bags”. Create a
website to housethese on or possibly a classroomblog (1 mins)
33. In my Production of instructional materials class this summer I was
challenged to create a blog. This was totally something out of my comfort
zone but, I did it and now, I love it! I regularly add to it sharing new and
interesting tidbits I learn about including some really great sites for usein
our classrooms. Hereis my blog address. (placed on slide) Please check it
out and follow to keep learning more and please sharein the comments
6. any interesting or cool sites, apps, or ideas you have for use in our
classrooms. (2 min)
34.Takeaways Thank you for listening and participating today in my
presentation. I hope you are walking away today with a few new tools for
creating some interesting and interactive presentations with your students.
I encourageyou all to reflect on what we’vetalked about today. My email
is hjohnson2@richmond.k12.va.us. Pleaseemail me with any questions,
ideas, or thoughts! I look forward to building a giant collaborative team to
keep us all fresh and up to date! (1 min)
