Beyond a Blackboard

Ignite presentations are efficient and ensure that the speaker uses their allocated five minutes wisely (and do not run over time). I had first experienced ignite talks at the Manaiakalani Hui, where teachers presented about their inquiries and found the concept impressive but daunting. The concept is simple, you have 20 slides which run for 15 seconds each,  adding up to a five minute presentation. From Try it Tuesdays! Blog In our PLG, we were given the task of creating an ignite talk on a topic that we pulled out of a hat. In my case, I was given the reading "Policies of Distraction" by John Hattie.  We were given three hours to learn about our topic and create our slides. These presentations were created through Keynote , which meant that we would be able to animate and time or slides simply. My slides became simpler as time went on! My topic was concerned with the policies that we create and follow, which do not accelerate learners. Hattie noted things li...

After discussing the use of Garageband a few years ago, I have found a new appreciation for Apple software. This weeks PLG on Keynote only affirmed this feeling, as I discovered how effective it can be, despite being a real fan of Google slides. Keynote Keynote contains more advanced features than I had experienced with Google Slides. It is possible to animate different elements of a slide (or the entirety of the slide if you were extra keen) and alter your images. Not only would these features be useful when creating interesting presentations, but they could be used to insert images into a movie or to create Stop Motion. As you can also edit the settings of the slideshow - e.g. to loop it or to vary the length of the slides, it is a great tool to use when presenting Ignite talks.  It can also run straight off your device, which could save you a lot of stress if you were presenting with a dodgy internet connection! I decided to manipulate my presentations to creat...

As I have been focussing on movie making for the last few weeks (and struggling) I have had to become quite resourceful in fixing some of the problems that we have encountered. I have discovered a few tricks that can save you in an emergency! Equipment A decent camera and tripod are essential for movie making, and having a microphone doesn't hurt either. As the teachers at my school shared one camera, I decided to use my one from home but I also experimented with my phone camera which I discovered could capture great video and audio. Shooting some test footage was really helpful as I uploaded it to iMovie to check the quality. I didn't quite have the budget to afford a proper tripod, but found that a phone tripod fit both my phone and camera and worked effectively. I purchased both a table top and full length phone tripod which was really helpful and kept my footage steady. I purchased these on sale at Typo Angles It was really easy to focus on the action live rath...

One of the aspects of digital pedagogy that I have struggled with the most has been movie making. After a disastrous first attempt (our footage somehow missed most of the action) at the start of the year, I have slowly built up to create very simple films over the last few terms. However, with the Manaiakalani film festival drawing closer, this week I have been facing my fears again. After being away for the majority of last week, I managed to film two scenes during my release on Friday after my students returned from technology.  One of these scenes came out fairly well, although it was clear more footage was required for it to make sense. The other scene looked fabulous on camera, but when I watched it on my larger screen I noted several errors and again this needed to be re-shot. Fortunately, we were able to shoot this scene quite quickly yesterday afternoon. A frame from our movie: Harriet Potter? My learning so far: 1. Try and prepare everything as much a...