Skitch your way to better presentations

A major issue that I have with my students is crappy presentation visuals. A typical student presentation uses Power Point slides with all of their notes on the screens: not so interesting for the audience. I have come to realize that they do this because it is all that they see in a classroom. They are modeling their own presentations after what they see their teachers doing; it's hard to blame them for this. This was the first major distinction I needed to make to them: you are not teaching a concept to your audience, you are entertaining them. This will better support them in their future because most of them have no intention of becoming teachers.

Another main issue I see is that they use Power Point because they already know how. They don't want to spend the time to learn a new program when they have something due tomorrow. My idea to fix this is to use class time to teach them some new strategies. Enter: Skitch. This app can help them to create the types of visuals that I want as their audience. Essentially, the goal is to use the visuals as a supplement to what they are saying rather than restating it.

In order to get them to create presentations that truly demonstrate critical thinking and creativity, they need a topic with some substance. After a suggestion from my literacy coach, I decided to have them create presentations that demonstrate a critical interpretation of a poem. They choose a poem from my list, read and annotated, then planned a presentation. I gave them a planning template that was basically a two-column grid. The left was for what they will say, and the right was for what they will show. Here are the technology requirements:

• c  Fewer than 10 words on the images (total, not per image)
• c  Vary text color and size
• c  Use an online image
• c  Use an image taken with the camera on the iPads
• c  Use a blank background
• c  Use the drawing feature
• c  Use the shapes feature

I demonstrated how to use all of these steps before setting them loose to create their visuals. I thought that it would take them about 20 minutes, but it took about an hour. Since they were on task, I didn't mind, and the results were worth the wait.

They presented in groups and videotaped themselves to do some self-evaluations of their speaking abilities. They were SOOO much better than the other presentations that they have done in the past. For most students the visuals did exactly what they should: they were a supplement to the presentation. I am hopeful that they use their new skills to put together awesome and engaging presentations for their final capstone projects.