How you can deliver your Presentations... If you want to that is...

I would imagine that we've all been there, head nodding, eyes straining to stay open and mind wandering a million miles away from where it should be. Whether it be in a formal business, workplace session or sitting through a family presentation of their latest holiday snaps, some presentations can literally sap the life force out of you. So how as teachers do we prevent the same thing from happening with our students? Yes, it is important that we get the information across to them as how else are they going to learn. The trick is obviously to keep your presentations interesting and even entertaining, make them fun, interactive and vary how you do them.

I've recently been introduced to a few new options for giving presentations, and so I thought I would share my thoughts on some of them and how effective I feel they may be within the classroom. I do acknowledge that not everybody will agree with me and some have their own preferences, however, I would encourage people to try some of them just to have a go and make your own assessment.

OK, we all know about Power Point, as mentioned in my previous post, this is an application I have extensively used to great effectiveness for many years. I do like its versatility and ease of use. However, it can be misused, too many slides, over-cluttered slides, too much information, shockingly bad templates and backgrounds and over-exaggerated transitions can all attribute to the dreaded death by power point scenario. So what else is out there?

Prezi, is a fun and quirky application for presenting your information. It uses a different style of transition between your key points and when incorporated into a particular background, can make the presentation visually interesting. I liked it and will probably use it again. I’ve included my first attempt at a Prezi presentation here. Let me know what you think.

Nearpod is amazing, fun, interactive and very useful for getting instant feedback from the class. And what is more you can use it with existing power point presentations, as well as creating your own. I particularly like the instant feedback you can get from your students, highlighting areas of concern or assessment needed and that learning has actually taken place. Downside, the fact that your students will need a device to access the online ‘classroom’ to participate. This is dependent on equipment and connections status, so bear this in mind.