3 Ways to Hack Classroom Presentations with James Sturtevant
Episode 122 of the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast
From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis
Follow @coolcatteacher on Twitter
Today James Sturtevant @jamessturtevant helps us hack our classroom presentations. So, whether they are flipped or in person, you can have more engagement with these tools and ideas. We’re also giving away a copy of his book to a lucky winner, Hacking Engagement Again. Awesome!
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Below is a transcript modified for your reading pleasure. For information on the guests and items mentioned in this show, scroll down to the bottom of this post.
Hacking Engagement Again Book Giveaway Contest
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3 Ways to Hack Classroom Presentations with James Sturtevant
Link for this show: http://ift.tt/2vK4pzt
VICKI: Today’s show is sponsored by Powerschool. I use their student information system and learning management system but do you know they have brought it together in one unified classroom? Stay tuned at the end of the show for more information.
Episode 122 – 3 Ways to hack presentations
Introduction
VICKI: Today we’re talking to James Sturtevant. He has a book coming out, Hacking Engagement Again. This is 50 more hacks to improve engagement and we will be doing a book giveaway. But today for edtech tool Tuesday we’re talking about three ways to present to 21st century students, so we are hacking those lame, boring presentations that some of us, yes, even me, I have given. So, James, what can we do to be better presenters?
JAMES: Here’s one thing that I’m really excited about. This is year 33 in education for me coming up. And I can’t retire because I’m having a lot of fun. One thing that’s happened to me over the last five years is I have totally evolved the way I present to students.
Now, one thing that I’m very bullish in is education is changing. We’re moving to more a self-directed model. We’re moving to more personalization and all those things are good. But there are occasionally times when you still have to go up and be the sage on the stage. There are times when you have to get in front of those kids and engage them.
But you can’t do it the old fashioned way. So, I remember being a college student and sitting in lecture halls for 50 minutes in this very passive method of instruction. And so what I’ve done over the last five years is revolutionize that. And I’m going to talk about three ways that I did that.
Idea #1: Use Presentation Zen Techniques from Garr Reynolds
VICKI: OK, let’s get started, what’s your first?
JAMES: Well, I read this book about four years a go that changed everything about the way I present. It’s called Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. And the whole…
VICKI: Great book.
JAMES: Oh, you’ve read it.
VICKI: Oh yeah, it changed mine too. And I changed how I taught presentations!
JAMES: Once you’ve read this book every presentation you go to and you look at a slide that is filled with bullet points. You just want to take the person aside and give them the book so they’ll stop doing that. So what Garr is all about is he wants image rich slides populated by very few bullet points, a sentence tops.
Or maybe, a title. And when I started doing this, I did a little research and I found out that the typical sentence is roughly 15 words long. And so I gave myself that limit. And then I tried to populate my slides with just incredibly compelling images. And, Vicki, I couldn’t get over the difference. My students were no longer having to multi task. They didn’t have to listen to me try to read the bullet point, try to take notes all simultaneously. They just relaxed and started to listen to me.
So that was a relatively old school fix to a problem of student engagement during presentations. And one other thing, the big change I made in that regard is [that] I shortened the length of the presentation. I was inspired to do that just by watching TED talks and then reading some of the research behind the length of TEd talks.
So, I try to populate my slides with compelling images. Hold myself to 15 words or less. And not go over 10 minutes on a presentation. That’s adjustment number one.
VICKI: Yes. And that’s great advice for all of us.
VICKI: I know some teachers are saying, “I wish somebody would tell so-and-so that.”
JAMES: laughter
Idea #2: Use PearDeck to Engage Students in Live Presentations
VICKI: OK, what’s our second?
JAMES: Here’s the other thing that happens with presentations is I don’t care how compelling your images are or how neat your explanations are. A lot of times you’re still just having a handful of kids participate by asking questions or answering questions or throwing up observations. And you have five kids doing that and twenty kids just sitting there passively. So, I was searching for some tech tools that will pull those 20 wallflowers in by the virtual lapels just pull them into the presentation. And what I found is called, Pear Deck. Have you used Peardeck?
VICKI: I haven’t. I’ve heard all about it. And, tell me.
JAMES: Here’s the thing. If you do your presentations on Google Slides or PowerPoint, it’s just simple to upload them to PearDeck. And, Vicki, I teach in a class. I imagine you teach in a similar situation where I have a projector in the front of the room. LIke a SmartBoard.
VICKI: Yes, I have a big old massive touch screen TV type thing.
JAMES: Yes, but here’s the thing. I have students that are twenty and twenty-five feet away from that board. In my room on a sunny day all of a sudden that board just isn’t quite as crisp as it is in a dark room. So, the first thing that PearDeck does is it instantly places your presentation on their device. So, its inches from their face. And all of a sudden it’s very clear and these compelling images are right there in front of them. You, then, control the pace of the presentation.
But here’s what makes it so cool. Is then you insert prompts into the presentation that the kids respond to. And then their responses come anonymously on your smartboard. It is one heck of a way to insert a hook at the beginning of a lesson. And if you have 25 kids it says 25 responses there. So those kids that were the wallflowers, those kids who were introverted who were reluctant, maybe, to put their hand up during a class discussion are participating.
VICKI: Love that, what’s our third?
Idea #3: Use Edpuzzle to Increase Engagement in Your Videos
JAMES: I’m a huge proponent of flipped presentations. I probably flip about 75% of my presentations. I did that because just in observing students in my class during their downtime, they are constantly on their phones watching absurd videos.
So, I thought, when in Rome, you just got to do like the Romans. So, I started flipping my presentations five years a go. And I was so pleased to hear those unsolicited compliments. That’s when you know you’re striking gold with kids. They’re like, we like this better. We watch at our own pace. We can watch parts of it and take a break. We can multi task like kids do and still watch a presentation. But, Vicki, there was something missing. I didn’t know for certain whether they were watching. And I also felt a little disconnect when they were watching my video at home.
VICKI: Yes.
JAMES: So, the key to me was Edpuzzle. Have you used Edpuzzle?
VICKI: I know about it. But tell us.
JAMES: So, Edpuzzle was the way, just like PearDeck, that you insert prompts into a video. And this is what’s beautiful, Vicki, its like on demand programming. The kids cannot fast forward through the video. They have to watch it in real time. They can pause it. And they can rewind. But they can’t fast forward. So, all of a sudden it’s like you are there with them wherever they are watching it. You’re asking them a question. They are responding. You can comment back to their responses. You can see the responses on your dashboard. And what’s also cool, this gives kids an incredible accountability factor as well because you can see what time they watched. You can see what percent they watched. So, gone is the concern that these kids just copied the notes off someone else and they didn’t even watch.
VICKI: I love that! Thank you! I’m sitting here and like “Oh wow.” I’ve been recording interviews all day and this amazing PD and you’ve just given me two great tools. And then, now, I understand Edpuzzle and appreciate that explanation in understanding it.
JAMES: And let me just say one more thing. With Edpuzzle and PearDeck if you teach in a Google School in particular, Edupuzzle, those kids just bam, they’re in. They sign in with Google and “Pow” they’re in, there’s nothing to it.
VICKI: So, the name of the book is Hacking Engagement Again, you can get lots more information from James Sturtevant. Please go to the show notes so you can enter to win because we all need more ideas to hack engagement and this is 50 more. Of course he has his first book, Hacking Engagement. And now we have fifty more Hacking Engagement again. And, you’ve just hacked our presentations in such a great way, James.
JAMES: Thank you.
Thank You to our Sponsor, PowerSchool, and their Unified Classroom Product
VICKI: This summer, Powerschool announced their Unified Classroom. The Unified Classroom brings together the teacher’s gradebook, Learning Management System, Student Information System, and assessment in one powerful platform with just one login. Take a look at the Unified Classroom from PowerSchool at http://ift.tt/2flIhV9.
Full Bio As Submitted
James Sturtevant
In August, I’ll begin my 33rd year teaching high school social studies. I’ve been married for 26 years to the lovely Penny. I have 3 children and 2 grandchildren. I live on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio.
The post 3 Ways to Hack Classroom Presentations with James Sturtevant appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!
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