January 17: About Classroom Presentations and "Ideas Worth Trying"

Assignment #1
This class examined the two major assignments. "Ideas worth trying" is a portfolio of five sites (either communications oriented, information oriented, or "ideas for teaching". One site must be Canadian. For each site, students are asked to give its title, URL, pedagogic potential, potential problems, and a concluding statement. Finally, the entire package should include a title page, an introductory page, a table of contents (listing each website and URL), and a concluding statement.

Note: One item has been changed from the original criteria set forth in the Day One course handout. Omit the section of McLuhan's tetrads. That will not have yet been covered in class.
The assignment is due on Thursday February 7.

At this point, we examined selected websites. Questia was introduced as a subscription database which calls itself "the world's largest library."

Google Images was examined, not as a website, but as a database aggregator. Whatever it is called, it can provide images of literally anything. The danger of google images is that the user can equally well pull up images that are not pedagogic, but in fact unsuitable for school children.

It needs to be reiterated that the internet was not made for teachers and learners; it was made for the rest of the world. We can adapt it to pedagogic purposes, but we need to be aware of its intended focus. and intended audiences. In the world of the internet entertainment and commerce come first. Whether in the near future we can successfully adapt it to our purposes has yet to be determined.

An AUP, or acceptable use policy should be available in all schools or divisions. Teacher candidates need to ask the appropriate school personnel to see the AUP, and find out what is allowed and what is not allowed, before using the internet as a teaching resource. Do you need parental permission? School permission? Which sites are locked out or filtered out?

Another issue is website evaluation. It has become a mantra to say that we need to teach students to be critical users of the web. There are many online sites that provide such critical guidelines. One such popular list asks the user to explore the five W's.
It is an interesting concept. But if you take a look at the page you have just been sent to (the Five W's, note that you cannot quite make those criteria work to satisfy its own page!

In class, we looked at the just released Encyclopedia of Manitoba. In that book, several errors were noted, including a price tag on a Ukrainian Easter egg (1) photo, and an article on a Mr. Simpson that was meant to be a put-on, or an in-joke. The entry on Mr. Simpson is probably the only one in the entire encyclopedia that was tongue-in-cheek and not to be taken seriously. The same article included a deliberate error, a deliberate misuse of the word mentor (instead of creator) and finally was merely initialled, even though the publisher promised that this encyclopedia was NOT like wikipedia: authors are not afraid to sign their names!

In short, to say that we need to teach students "to be critical users of the web" falls short. In fact we need to teach students to be critical users of information, wherever it comes from.




Assignment Two:

Teachers teach. Teachers teach with technology. Teachers teach content with technology. This class will provide an overview of presentation techniques.

In education, this is traditionally called "lesson planning". In the world of business, this is simply called presentation techniques.

There are three steps.
First you need to organize and prepare your presentation. Second, you need to understand the strengths and limitations of powerpoint (or whatever technology you are using. Third, you need to know basic delivery techniques.

One useful site which summarizes these is by a professional consulting company called Garr Reynolds. Their online links are useful:
Planning tips
Slide tips
Presentation tips