Tech Talk: Making the Most of Technology in your Classroom: Part 2 Presentation and Publication Tools

Tech Talk: Making the Most of Technology in Your Classroom Part 2: Presentation and Publication Tools Shelley Martin-Young

Publishing students' work might be the last step in the writing process, but it is still an important part that is often overlooked. Students put time and effort into their writing and having a purpose for that writing can be a factor that motivates the reluctant writer. If students know that they will have an authentic audience for their writing, they are more likely to put extra time and effort into their work. Being able to have a goal to work towards keeps even the most reluctant writer in your class interested in the sometimes-difficult process.

Celebrating our young authors is vital to the writing classroom. Publishing is the fun part where students can actually see all of their hard work in print. Publishing can be as simple as typing their final piece in a word document and adding illustrations and a construction paper cover, hanging their work in the hallway where everyone can see it, creating a class book of students' work, or reading their work to other students and parents. The use of technology is another important and easy way to publish students’ work. For the remainder of this piece I will include my favorite presentation and publication tools.

Canva is one of the very best free tools for presenting and publishing students’ work. Canva allows students to make flyers, posters, infographics, magazine covers and more. This is a free website that lets your students use the hundreds of templates that are available, or to design their own creations. Canva has an unlimited supply of images, photo filters, fonts, icons, shapes, and templates. This site is easy to use and a great place to allow your students to make their work beautiful. As a matter of fact, many of The Oklahoma Reader's pages are designed using Canva. See the cover below as an example. Another perk of Canva is the Teacher Materials page. Teachers can look for suggestions and lesson plans from other teachers. You can access the Canva website here.

Adobe Spark is another tool that will work wonderfully in assisting your students in publishing their work. While Adobe Spark does have paid versions, the free version has plenty to help your students make their work eye-catching and more appealing. Adobe Spark allows your students to make photo journals, movies, infographics, portfolios, flyers, and much more. Adobe Spark will allow students' stories to come to life. It is easy for students to use and its ease makes it very engaging for students. Like Canva, Adobe Spark offers easy templates, and lesson plans for the teacher. Adobe Spark has safety measures in place that allow sharing students' creations

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easily and without worry. Spark has recently joined with NASA to add more to their Adobe Spark for Education including a technology inventing contest with a grand prize of a trip to NASA. You can access Adobe Spark here and the special NASA Spark here. An example of a student made video can be viewed here. A few of the many templates available on Adobe Spark are pictured below.

This blog post shows how teachers can use Spark with students from kindergarten through 12 th grade. Scholastic also has lesson plans to incorporate students work into Adobe Spark. There are so many uses for Adobe Spark that you will fall in love with it immediately. Here are more ideas for use in the classroom.

While Canva and Adobe Spark have uses other than video creation Screencast-o-matic is a tool that is primarily used as a video creation and editing tool. It is free to use and gives students the ability to create videos adding text, images, and automated captioning. There is an upgrading option which gives you space in the cloud, but the free version is all the students will need. Screencast-o-matic gives the teacher many options as well including making flipped learning accessible, lecture capture, video announcements, and the capability of creating student assignments. There are many uses for Screencast-o-matic in the classroom and you can see a few of them here. Check out Screencast-o-matic for a great video creating tool.

One of my favorite presentation tools is Thinglink. Thinglink allows students to add music, videos, charts, graphs, and sound easily to presentations. Thinglink makes static presentations interactive. Thinglink is also great for virtual field trips and online interactive storytelling. With Thinglink students can turn research that they might consider boring into an instant interactive presentation. By taking a picture of what they are researching, like the hummingbird below, students can add maps, videos, facts, other pictures, and even the sound the hummingbird makes, with just the click of a button.

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With the easy editor, students can tag images, videos, and 360 degree media. Students can also easily embed audio, video, and web links into their presentations. There is also a mobile app available where you can save pictures and directly add voice recording to photos on your camera. Below is another example of student work using Thinglink.

You can find a link to Thinglink for Education here.

Finally, I will discuss two video presentation tools that are simple for students to use, Powtoon and Animoto. Powtoon is a very easy way to create videos and presentations. Powtoon brings your presentations to life and also allows students a creative way to create digital stories. There are dozens of templates to choose from, or students can create their own. Powtoon allows your students to turn their presentation into a cartoon. Powtoon offers many comic graphics for your students to choose from. Again, there are paid versions, but the free account will work nicely in your classroom.

Animoto is a platform that combines images, text, video, and audio into a video that is easily shareable. Animoto videos are great for students and teachers alike. I use Animoto to create my back to school videos and introduce students to new concepts. Animoto, like many of the other tools I have talked about, gives you the option of choosing templates. All you have to do is add photos or video clips. Animoto is also very easy to use. All you have to do is drag and drop, making this tool easy for your youngest authors. This sample video shows a students' work made into a video.

While posting students' work outside the classroom is a great way to celebrate your authors, using some of these presentation and publishing tools ups the game and brings your students' work to life. In the next issue of The Oklahoma Reader, I will share all things Google.

Shelley Martin-Young Oklahoma State University, Doctoral Candidate Graduate Teaching Assistant ~ Teaching Language Arts and Children's Literature

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