Digital Presentations

I have mixed feelings about digital presentations because I feel that too many of my colleagues view their use of digital presentations as 21st century teaching.  Although programs like PowerPoint make lecture notes slightly more engaging, they are frequently used in a very teacher-centered manner.  Consequently, there is often no real pedagogical shift between writing on a chalkboard and using a digital presentation.

After observing many lessons that could be referred to as "Death by PowerPoint" as students fell asleep and doodled in their notebooks, I do appreciate programs like Prezi, Glogster, and Voki because they are more dynamic.  However, I still prefer that these programs are introduced as tools for student use in a student-centered classroom because, in the hands of students, these tools can be used for creation activities that display higher order thinking.

Since Glogster is partially blocked and won't load properly in my district, I chose to create a Prezi because there are many teachers at my school interested in making more interactive presentations. I familiarized myself with the program by creating an introductory presentation for the unit on Elie Wiesel's Night that I will be teaching in two weeks. This presentation is intended for use with an interactive white board so the students and I can apply reading strategies and other annotations to the information in class. This way, I can also model the use of the tool and encourage my students to use the program for a culminating project at the end of the unit. 

I like the way that Prezi allows a more conceptual organization instead of the traditional linear organization and I also like that it is easy to create and easy to embed documents, pictures and videos. Here is the URL for my presentation:
http://prezi.com/5yww_xz6jdda/introduction-to-night-by-elie-wiesel/

(Sorry for the delay - I accidentally hit "save" instead of "publish".  I guess this experience can be added to my list of "cons" on my blogging entry!)