Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Ambiance for Learning

Presented by Lynell Burmark at ISTE 2010 www.educatebetter.org

Synopsis: A fabulous presentation ranging from the physical plant: "You can't learn in ugly" to visual literacy.

Day-to-Day Classroom Stuff

Sources of copyright free images:
Activities Modeled:
  • Pre-session slideshow with positive images and music  
  • Multiple intelligences - posters describing Gardner's Multiple Intelligences were placed around the room. Participants were given four colored stickers and asked to apply the stickers to the posters that matched their learning styles/intelligences. As a presenter, this helps determine how you should present.
  • Progressive story - groups of three. Person with the shortest hair starts a story with the first slide, then tosses the ball to a second person to continue the story when the slide changes, etc. Koosh balls available at www.orientaltrading.com
  • Wordle - helping students process both words and pictures www.wordle.net
    Feed in text of your choice. Resulting graphic will be based either on word frequency or weights you assign to words. Free article with lots more detail at www.educatebetter.org 
  • Compare/contrast - Marzano's #1 strategy from What Works in Schools. Use images. e.g. toilet paper over or under.
Projectors 101 - beware the cheap deals:
  • Old standard was XGA: 1024x768 or 4:3 aspect ratio
  • Current standard is widescreen or WXGA: 1280x800 or 16:10 aspect ratio
  • DLP vs. LCD: have a projector shoot-out by comparing identical images projected side by side.  choose a range of images such as lemons, outdoor lighting, skin tones.
Improving presentation quality:
  • Ideas from graphic designer Nancy Duarte "slide:ology"  http://blog.duarte.com/
  • Four step process for making slides with high impact:
    • start with original slide (one with lots of text)
    • find a key word in each bullet point
    • delete everything else
    • add a picture
Improving the Physical Plant

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