Copy of Crafting a Presentation

      Crafting Presentation

Today’s global society is dominated by technology. Over the past years the idea of having students present a slide show in front of their classmate has been criticized by those who are against educational technology. Therefore it is imperative that students receive advance instruction in the usage of technology. This feat can be successfully accomplished by integrating and immersing students in various meaningful activities using a plethora of effective technology applications and strategies that are necessary for success. Students are being required more and more to use various technology components to complete many required assignments.


Such assignment are being assigned to students as young as second and third grades and on throughout high school and college. Since the introduction of word documents and internet students have become complacent with simple cutting and pasting information from various sites or just printing information directly from the internet and turning it “as it is”. When having to digitally present information, students pretty much do the same thing. In crafting digital writing, Hicks believe that there is no excuse for “power pointless” presentation. Instead students have endless opportunities to prepare presentations for both real-time and on-demand delivery. I can't recall how many times I have sat in a meetings/workshops listen to presenters attempt to share information through the use of "power pointless" presentations.

Often times they read directly from the slides without any embellishments using a monotone, robot like voices. During such presentations, my attention was not focused on the information, which did not lead to any retaining of knowledge. As teachers we want to avoid this and use every available seconds of instructional time to engage in meaningful, thought provoking situation that leads to the understanding and retention of knowledge. Through my reading of Crafting Digital Writings, Hicks outlines several alternatives to the standard standalone presentations. Creating ineffective, dull slides leave little to the imagination and do not indulge the audience in the journey. Once students have learned to master the art of crafting literary work, they should be able to publish their works in a way that the piece doesn't lose its meaning. It is imperative to understand according to Cranford, J. (2016). Stated that the number of slides in a presentation is irrelevant to the success of a presentation.


 However, the amount of time spent on each slide determining the effectiveness of that presentation.

                 In order to reach the audience the author/presenter can follow the six principles of stickiness as outlined in Made to Stick: Why some ideas survived and Others Die (2007

1. Make your presentations simple and short.

2. Surprise your audience with unexpected ideas.

3. Make it concrete; avoid the use of abstract objects.

4. Make your presentation effective and on point.

5. Tell a story that your audience can relate to.

6. Research your information; make sure they are reliable.

Utilizing these principle will ensure that piece will appeal to and gain the attention of the intention audience.

View my presentation below on the six principles of “stickiness”.  





Reference

Cranford, J. (2016) Edutopia What Works in Education: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/8-tips-classroom-presentation-jason-cranford-teague

   

Heath, C & Heath, D. (2007) Make to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die (1st Ed.).

                  New York: Random House.

Hicks, T. (2013) Crafting Digital Writing: Composing texts Across Media and Genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 

Creative Digital Writing

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ED 629

OLUCHI ELECHI

   Creative Digital Writing Blog

According to Hicks, T. (2013) Robinson (2011) stated that being creative involves doing something, it would be odd to describe as creative someone who never did anything. He also stated, that creativity is more than lock; it involves intention, deliberation and selecting from among choices, Robinson (2011). Therefore craft writing is an act of creativity. However, as an educator we need to get our students expose to this creative writing through workshop approach and invite them to explore author's craft, confer with us and their peer and publish their work for a variety of audiences

 

 Hicks, T. (2013), stated that in order to help our students become craft writers, we must teach them how to study craft with lenses. As cited by Hicks, T. Fletcher and Portalupi (1998) stated that "one view of craft is to see it as a tool for looking, also mentioned that students should also learn to read like a writer". This means that as a teacher we should present to our students a writing that will help them get a feel for the setting, voices, tension, inner story, or recurring details. we should present to our students writings that will help them become writer them selves, that means we should give them the lenses that will help them see the craft in what they are reading, and that will help them develop new lenses with which they will use to revisit their own writing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPRM2ZXyrS0

A lot of time our students are unable to see this lenses even the most skilled reader among our students may not have all the lenses they need to see the way in which an author constructs a text;

even with correct lenses, students don't always look through them without prompting Hicks, T. (20013) P (12). Therefore it is our duty as educators to provide to our students the lenses and prompts they need to identify the craft in writing. However, when students recognize some of these craft elements, they will then go from something a reader has read to something a writer can write.

Meanwhile, teaching creative writing require specific craft techniques that includes providing lenses that will help students see the craft in writing. The next techniques is to slow down the process so the students can see craft that might have been overlooked due to a number of reasons that might have cause distractions during the process. Also start small, once we have looked through the lens, and slow down to identify and explore the related elements of craft, Hicks, T. (2013), p (13) talked about Elizabeth Hale's suggestions of a third important way to teach craft; which is starting small, this applies to the craft element and the way you will approach your students with it, this include teaching specific craft for a whole-class, individual or small groups. Show students how to write one particular way of writing one step at a time.

In addition, we must also encourage our students to move beyond models; we want them to take risks with their writing, as the best writers do, and yet have the supports in place to help them understand when they've made a mistake. We need to teach craft in a variety of ways and must likely a number of times, to the whole class, to small groups, and to individuals. Only then will students truly understand and own the technique. Also we need to focus on one element at a time Hicks, T. (2013) p (16).



                        Reference

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing; Composing Tesxts Across Media and Genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. p (1_42).

Berdik, C. (2016) Can a Curious Computer Improve Student Writing? Retrieved September 20, 2016


http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2016/01/writelab_a_roboreader_that_helps_students_improve_their_writing.html