CEdO530 Digital Storytelling-Entry #5

I am intrigued this week with our study of rubrics. For some reason, my mind only works with percentages, so using rubrics with point values always screwed with my mind. Although I don't usually use rubrics, I can appreciate the value for both the student and the teacher. That being said, I am going to make a concerted effort to incorporate rubrics into my curriculum this year, and determine future use based upon the experiences. Whenever I give an assignment, I discuss criteria that will be used to assess student performance, but a rubric would probably streamline the process. In language arts, I have always tried to grade papers using the 6+1 writing traits guide, and I like how it can identify specific areas of weakness. I would love to find a system that limits subjectivity in grading, but I know that will be difficult to find. Even the 6+1 lends itself to subjective grading, but it does provide a vehicle for some objectivity that would be missing without the grading criteria. I will certainly be mindful of the successes and failures of using rubrics for my assignments this year, and I will also seek feedback from my students to see if it helped them tailor their assignments to what was being assessed.
The group work this week is both a positive and negative undertaking. Positive in the fact that we get to write a paper, something that I enjoy creating. Negative in the fact that we are reviewing two products that are foreign to me. Hopefully, through a meeting of the minds, my group will enlighten me about what is unfamiliar, and we will be able to create a paper worthy of merit.
The Pecha Kucha presentation in theory really got me excited. Now that I have test driven this presentation style, I am not sure that I am ready to buy. I certainly don't blame the product, because I like the idea of working within certain constraints. My disappointment is that I wasn't able to create the presentation that I had initially envisioned. The initial plan was to create 20 slides about writing in iambic pentameter, and show the parallel between that form of writing and the form involved in creating a Pecha Kucha presentation. For whatever reason, my ideas led to dead ends, and I decided to scrap the idea. Hopefully I am resilient enough to revisit my initial ideas after I have more experience with this presentation form. I still like the idea of using it to create a week in review for those who are absent or for parents to view. But, as always, my mind tries to weigh the value of the product versus time to create ratio, and I am not sure that the idea would bare fruit. So, in the end, I have been frustrated with this assignment because I was unable to create what I set out to accomplish. But frustration that leads to learning can be good, and my frustration has yielded a fair amount of knowledge concerning a presentation style that I previously knew nothing about.

CEdO530 Digital Storytelling-Entry #4

The Presentation Zen reading for this week really hit home today. We had an early release day in the district because we had a guest speaker coming to talk with us about professional learning communities. The presentation lasted from 1:45-3:30. Thinking about the book in a general sense, I found myself rating the presentation from the Zen point of view. The slides were heavy with text, the presentation seemed endless, and the handout was a copy of the PowerPoint slides. Prior to reading the textbook I would have been bored with the presentation. After reading the text I was bored because I knew there was a better way to present the information.
Specific to the reading this week, the speaker would have been wise to trim some of the fat from his presentation. I have a difficult time sitting for any length of time, but sitting in one spot for nearly two hours was an exercise in torture. I don't care how great of a presentation you have, expecting people to sit for that long and pay attention is silly. Our speaker had an excellent message, but with attention spans beginning to wane at about the 10-15 minute mark, I wonder what the audience learned from the presentation. By shortening the presentation, I believe the message would have been clearer, and the impact greater.
I love Ben Sander's emphasis, not on success or failure, but on contribution. None of the usual concerns that many presenters worry about are important. It doesn't really matter if we are a success or failure, because if that is our concern, we will not be effective. Sander also discusses the great concept of not taking ourselves too seriously. Obviously, we put extensive time into the preparation and polished delivery of our message, but that doesn't mean that we can't make mistakes. We should be able to laugh at ourselves within the context of doing our best. If we have that attitude, there will be a greater chance of a naturalness appearing in our presentations, and a better connection with the audience.
The Prezi tool is really fascinating because it is unlike anything that I have seen before. Having a giant canvas to put one's information, and then linking that information together seems like a really cool way to make presentations. That being said, I have found Prezi a little more difficult to use effectively than how it was described. But I suspect that my struggles revolve around having to learn a new tool and having high expectations for myself. I sometimes don't have the patience with myself to really give something a chance. I think with more use, Prezi will be a great tool to add to the arsenal.
The Pecha Kucha assignment has also been a little bit of a struggle, again because it is a new way of thinking for me. I like having the storyboarding ability in the planning analog stage, so when I go to the computer, my time will be spent more efficiently.
Overall, the week's assignments have been a challenge for me, but a good challenge. I think that I have found new tools that I will be able to share with my students, and hopefully I will remember not to take myself too seriously while I learn how to use the tools effectively.