BP13_Google Presentations2

When I decided on Google presentations, I imagined images and text to show various shooting and photographic techniques that I want my students to become familiar with. As I filtered through the tutorials, ideas began emerging on other rich design elements that can be brought into my presentation to incorporate a more meaningful message—for example, using the drawing tool to create a mind map.  

Google Presentations Drawing Feature

I thought about how much more effective the presentation would be if after introducing the subject, I displayed a map of the key concepts or steps involved in the technique as a way to establish more concise learning outcomes.  The second design element is the addition of video.  

YouTube video and my dog

Presentations should no longer be static, especially in digital photography with the emergence of limitless online tutorials. Google Presentations are linked with YouTube so any video on the site can be incorporated into the presentation. I can’t believe I didn’t do this sooner! So any tutorial I create or video that enhances the lesson can now be a part of it (and in a much more organized way!)  Since my ARP is focused on digital storytelling, I feel as though, with Google presentations, I have a new tool to help me in my journey. 

The third design element that I’ll be incorporating involves animation and a technique called “incremental reveal”.  This feature hit home with me because I find that at the beginning of my discussions I usually ask a question that involves several responses.  It’s a way of beginning a brainstorming session to segue into a topic. With incremental reveal I can have words revealed at different points in the slide for more effect. Students can also think more deeply about their response as certain key words appear on the slide.

Adding animation to presentation

BP12_Google Presentations1

Google Presentation Tutorials on Lynda.com

I decided to learn more about Google presentations.  This is a perfect tool for me because I am always preparing lesson plans and examples to show my students on various photographic techniques. I sit at my computer at night putting my presentation together, then save it to a disk or flash drive in order to take it with me for my class. The google presentation tool eliminates the saving and storage issues and gives me peace of mind that I’ll never forget to take it with me. I’m excited to get started with it.  It's also a tool I'll be using with my ARP.

Woopid only had a 2 minute video and it was more of a generic google docs introduction, so I went right to Lynda.com (thank goodness for Lynda), where I found over 45 minutes devoted just to google presentations. The tutorials are broken down into 3 sections: the basics, working with media and sharing, collaborating and presenting.  I love that they offer templates to choose from—I found it very inspiring as I was learning the tool. What I also love is the “new features” button.  This gives the user the option to see the latest features that have been added to the tool—what a simple and fantastic way to stay current with the software. Google presentations also offers a revision history every time the presentation is saved, so there’s no need to worry about ever deleting a slide by mistake and thinking it’s lost for good.  It reminds me of the layers option in photoshop.  I’ll be back in later posts to report on my progress with google presentations but so far, so good!

BP10_Comment to Teresa

Follow this link to my comments on Teresa's blog.

BP9_Comment to Amille

Follow this link to my comments on Amille's blog about Google forms.

BP8_Photobabble

Web 2.0 never ceases to amaze me—I’ve just found photobabble, a talking photograph site! At first I laughed and quickly passed it by, noting that it seemed to be consumed with baby photos where the parents thought it would be funny to give their child the voice they think he or she might have, if they could only speak. But then I began to think about ways in which this site might be useful in my digital photography classroom.  My concern is that I never want to fully replace the class time critique we currently have with all of these web 2.0 tools that can be utilized in a more online discussion.  I love the fact that, in class, students respond to each other face to face and discuss in person what is working well or what may need improvement. I truly feel that this is the most valuable aspect of the class. However, I was looking at photobabble and imagining that students could record some very pertinent information in their babble, such as the image’s location and exposure settings. This would give other students the information that helps to better understand the lighting and would save the deeper discussions on composition, inspiration, etc for class time to generate a richer discussion and related topics. 

One of the biggest reasons I chose this tool is for just plain fun and a way to increase the social interaction among classmates. How great it will be to see how creative students will be as they decide what their images will say.  Will they disguise their voices and try to be funny or be more concerned with mentioning the non-visual aspects of the scene they photographed—talk about using MI theory to bring out their natural personalities!  Here's a link to the site to find out more information.

www.photobabble.com 

BP7_OMM_Photo_Peach

BP6_Comment to Barry

Follow this link to my comments on Barry Roth's blog.