The Florida Center for Instructional Technology (FCIT) is in the College of Education in the University of South Florida and is funded by the Florida Department of Education. The FCIT’s web site (http://fcit.usf.edu) has an interesting assortment of resources to help teachers integrate technology in the classroom.
TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION MATRIX
The best part of this site is the Technology Integration Matrix (http://fcit.usf.edu:16080/matrix/). This matrix is “a video resource supporting the full integration of technology.” It pairs “levels of technology integration”—entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, transformation—with “characteristics of the learning environment”—active, collaborative, constructive, authentic, and goal directed. Each cell in the matrix lists an indicator for that particular pair combination and two links, one to a video example for “1-1 access” and one for “shared access.”
The matrix is designed for several purposes; however, I think one of the most effective purposes is for individual teachers to determine where they currently are in the matrix and where they want to be in terms of their integration of technology in the classroom. Then they can watch videos on a path from their present status to their desired status to help them develop ideas for how they can intentionally change their teaching strategies.
Last week I said, “I can intentionally make changes in process… [to] come closer to… [my] goals.” The Technology Integration Matrix is a tool which can help us make those intentional changes.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Additional resources are available at this FCIT web site. Unfortunately, in some sections you will find some broken links as you explore due to the fact that they haven’t been updated since 2004.
A free set of online stories and poems is available in Lit2Go. These stories and poems are in MP3 format so you can listen to them on your MP3 player or your computer. The text can also be read on a web page. You’ll find works by Aesop, Jane Austen, James Baldwin, Beatrix Potter, Theodore Roosevelt, H.G. Wells, and many others. This site has been recently updated (2007).
Clipart, ETC contains clip art which teachers can use, usually free and with minimal restrictions. You’re not likely to find a picture of a computer in the collection, but there are some good items there. And a site map helps you find the good stuff.
robin 
Shakespeare 
More than 20,000 backgrounds for Keynote or PowerPoint presentations, Holocaust resources (last updated January 2007), oral histories (video clips) from the Vietnam War, more than 5,000 maps covering different time periods (last updated August 16, 2007), … The list of resources goes on. Spend a few moments exploring this web site and you’re bound to find something that is helpful to you.
Using Thumbstacks, you can create a slide show presentation online and then share it with others by providing a link. You need to sign up for an account, but it’s free.
Here’s a quick slide show I made in Thumbstacks: http://thumbstacks.com/p/jo/Creating+JPGs
You should recognize this slide show from the instructions I provided in the last blog entry for how to create a JPG in PowerPoint.
I discovered Thumbstacks and how to create a JPG in PowerPoint at the same time as I examined some TeacherTube videos. In particular, I viewed Intro to Thumbstacks (http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=6dd3cc56283f2313522d).
Creating slide shows in Thumbstacks is easy. Some of the menu choices are available at the top of the screen and some become available by right-click (on a two-button mouse) or control-click. Text-formatting options are available. You can upload images. You can drag-and-drop. Themes and styles are available.
The slide shows don’t have all the features of a full-fledged presentation tool. Options missing are transitions, sound, video, and drawing tools. A forum (bugs; feature requests and ideas; and comments, criticism and questions) is available.
Thumbstacks includes an option for real-time use during remote meetings. I haven’t tried this yet.
Thumbstacks is an easy-to-use Web 2.0 application for creating and viewing presentations. Both teachers and students would, most likely, find Thumbstacks very useful.
I’ve used AppleWorks for years to create files formatted as JPGs. The AppleWorks Draw module is very easy to use… to mix graphics and text… to create title pages, logos, and other JPG files.
The Save As options in Word do not, however, include JPG. So, I thought that Microsoft Office had not provided the option to save a file as a JPG.
I just learned that there is a procedure in Microsoft Office to do this. I was looking in the wrong application. I needed to look at PowerPoint.
Here’s how you create a JPG in PowerPoint…
- Launch PowerPoint
- Create a blank slide (slide layout)
- View > Toolbars > Drawing
- Create a image using choices on the Drawing toolbar
- Save As whatever.jpg
Use the file you create in other applications when you need an image file in a graphics format.
Here's a JPG image I created in PowerPoint using this procedure. BTW, I never said I was an artist! ;)
I’ll share in next week’s blog entry how I discovered this procedure.
I looked on the Internet for design ideas for PowerPoint presentations for education. My goal was to find some simple ways to make the presentations more effective. I hoped to find some rules--do two of this… or three of that--to help make the design elements easy to remember. I did find a couple rules and quite a few recommendations.I’m sharing these ideas with the hope that they will be useful as you work with students who are learning PowerPoint… or any other presentation tool.
THREE Guidelines for Design…1. Determine the Purpose of the PresentationHow you approach the presentation…Do you want to entertain, educate, or persuade? Considering the topic and the audience, should your approach be formal or informal? The answers to these questions will help to determine the fonts, images, and backgrounds that you choose.How you use the presentation…Are you designing the presentation for the screen, the web, or for printing… or for a combination of these? Dark backgrounds with light fonts display well on the screen; however, they do not print well. You may want to format the slides with one color scheme for display and another for printing.2. Keep the Presentation SimpleUse TWO font families…Using two font families (in the whole presentation) serves most presentations well. You may want to try light-colored fonts on dark backgrounds. Your audience will find it very easy to view.Use ONE photo / image / chart…One photo, image, or chart is usually the most you want on each slide. That, of course, does not include a school or district logo that you might use.Use SIX words / SIX bullets rule…Use white space generously. In order to have white space, you must keep the number of words on each slide to a minimum. I’ve read—and tried—several different combinations of how much information you should display on each slide. In my experience, six words per bullet and six bullets per slide are pretty much a maximum. Cliff Atkinson, author of Beyond Bullet Points, says, "When you remove interesting but irrelevant words and pictures from a screen, you can increase the audience's ability to remember the information by 189% and the ability to apply the information by 109%."Keep the file size SMALL…Try to keep the file size of the presentation from growing too large. Compress photos. Use built-in PowerPoint features--tables, charts, AutoShapes—rather than embedding and importing objects as much as possible. There’s no magic number for how small the file size should be. Just keep in mind that LESS is MORE.Follow the 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint…* ten slides* twenty minutes* no fonts smaller than thirty points.Ten concepts is more than enough to learn in one setting… and twenty minutes is more than enough sitting time. And your audience will certainly appreciate that the font size is readable… even from the back row.Put LOTS of information in the handout…Create a handout for your audience. Put as much information and detail in it as you want them to know. And tell them at the beginning that you will give them a handout after the presentation is finished so they don’t have to take notes and can, instead, listen to you and watch the presentation.Use FEW special effects…Special effects can distract people, so they should be used sparingly. Sounds, especially, can be a problem. If you’re showing the presentation from your laptop, any sound effects may not be well heard by members of the audience beyond the first couple of rows because laptops are not designed to project sound far.3. Choose Consistent ElementsUse the same… fonts, colors, style of photos, style of images, animations, slide transitions, and templates through the whole presentation.Final CommentsThe slides are an aid to your presentation. They are not THE presentation. So, the words on the slides should support the words you say."Right and wrong do not exist in graphic design. There is only effective and non-effective communication." — Peter Bilak, author of Illegibility
Shakespeare 
