Powerful PowerPoint

This assignment was an interesting exercise in brevity and active surprise!  By scrutinizing the examples, considering the design elements of visual surprise, and trying to communicate vital bits of knowledge in a brief way, I believe I've put the power into my PowerPoint.

I am no stranger to developing presentations for large groups. One of my duties UNC-CH was to prepare PPts for the lawyers at the Institute of Government....back then PPts were the cutting edge of technology. Really. I'm that old. They had to be legal, detailed, with nothing left to the imagination. Thirty years later, preparing PPts for gifted research presentations, the level of detail does not have to be as expansive but sources are in-text cited and then included in a reference slide at the end to prove sources. The citing practice still continues when I prepare a presentation for professionals in the field...it is expected.




But with this assignment I needed to approach the information from a different perspective. I needed to display impact, directed to a specific audience for a specific purpose. I chose to prepare this PPt for giftedness as a guide for teachers who will have classrooms of heterogeneous populations but won't know what to do with gifted thinkers. Some teachers think giftedness is an elitist concept intended to give some students special favors.



Differentiation helps catches even those
not yet identified officially.

Some teachers are intimidated by students who may, in fact, know more than they do and resist differentiation where it may clearly be a valuable tool for those that are identified as gifted and especially for those not yet identified but who are in danger of losing interest and becoming an underachiever. [Underachievers are the gifted students who have been bored to tears by drilling the same information multiple times, or told to go slow so everyone can move together, or worse have teachers who believe differentiation means additional handouts about the same information the other students are learning.  **oUCH!!**  The gifted thinkers give up, they check out, and they appear lazy.]

For this PowerPoint I followed a 'story' that begins with comparing thinking to bread making. It moves on to what a teacher can do to address individual needs in the classroom and then how to recognize gifted traits in a student who may need to be referred for evaluation. It ends with a tie back to the beginning bread metaphor. I initially wrote my story as if I were talking to someone, then repeatedly edited it for brevity until I had gone too far and it made no sense. A careful back step made the information meaningful, but brief. I used color, contrast, and humor where possible to portray meaning without words, or few words. It was a delicate dance back and forth to select the right words, the placement, and the color to express meaning. Ultimately I settled on what you saw and saved it to DropBox so it can be accessed later and through many different devices. This PPt could stand alone as an emailed attachment to teachers who have my students sprinkled in their rosters, or could be used as a faculty in-service where I would speak additional explanation and provide handouts.

This assignment, using a PowerPoint with teachers, clearly defines the fifth standard of the ISTE-NETS-S: engaging in professional growth and leadership, in particular contributing to the effectiveness and vitality of the teaching profession and of the school.

The purpose and audience needs to be clearly defined when preparing a PowerPoint. The images need to be memorable so the information lingers long after the last slide slips away.

...and a little more braininess for this Tuesday

...there's nothing like a song in the gourdpatch. Here's a catchy tune grown out of a class assignment and suitable for sharing with other brainiacs.

Gifted folks in the Gourd Gracious Gourdpatch

Mary Bethune (played by Madelyn Sanders). See YouTube in My Diigo.

Today, the Gourd Gracious gourdpatch celebrates giftedness--in this case a gifted actress (Madelyn Sanders) portraying a gifted thinker, Mary Bethune. Gifted women, like the humble yard gourd, grow and hide their fruits under foliage. It is only when the cold wind shrivels the vine and leaves does the wonder and strength of the fruit of the vine stands proudly displaying its splendor. Mary, like many gifted women, did that....quietly moving forward, not letting the day-to-day events deter from the mission at hand, then BAM....its all out there!! HooRAH for the Mary's of the world!!

Same Field Trip in Google Earth

Google Earth the mind-blowing program that makes a person think about Big Brother. By using KML technology (Keyhole Markup Language), a Google Map can be converted into a 3-dimensional map with various layers for a valuable navigation tool. In this extensive field trip, the roads and elevations can be annotated so the drivers of the RVs can know ahead of time which ones may be too steep to consider. The weather layer shows what's coming. Roads are visually described not just presented, buildings exist not just pointed out with a push pin. As a traveling tool, Google Earth makes the trip less a mystery and more a certainty.

I found it simpler than I thought. I brought up My Places in Google Maps, clicked on the map I wanted to use, double-clicked on the KML link and things happened! By choosing layer options, I was able to dictate what I would see according to my need. If I was the RV driver, I might want to find alternative routes to the one I had initially chosen based on what I saw. As a student finding someplace to stop for a pizza lunch, we'd all know what kind of neighborhood it would be in and frankly, since we're thinking of safety, I'd want to know what we we'd be driving into. The 3-d building option would help with that as well. Tilting, rotating, moving side to side...the coordinates reposition as needed to maintain a factual representation of the journey. The captured image of the map shows the journey, but it changes depending on the layers I choose to show. Jing and Screencast were not as easy to use this time as they have been in the past. It took several passes to finally get an image uploaded. I included the link just to prove I did it but the image you see here has been snipped. I will need to continue updating this post until I get the Screencast image to appear properly.

When clicking on a push pin, the earth's surface gets closer and
closer until buildings appear and get bigger.

Google Earth for Educators offers lesson plans and projects for teachers to use when introducing students to Google Earth. Classroom Resources has categories of projects with varying tabs of difficulty [Easy, Average, Advance].


Although many ISTE NETS-T technology standards apply, this conversion to a 'use-tool' is best explained by #3 -- exhibiting skills and processes representative of technology use by professionals. This could be used by drivers as mentioned, but what surveyors, farmers, land developers, the military. As a digital society, more and more the tools of digital add to  immediate caches of knowledge.

Virtual Field Trip using Google Maps

I approached this assignment as a wish list of educational goals, with a gourdeous twist: The Great Gourdeous Educational Escape. It would be a gifted academic program of learning that uses a guiding light of consistency (American Gourd Society chapter festivals) to combine core class information into real life experiences while using digital tools.

The trip begins with a gourdgatuan grant [math], lays out broad deadlines of the gourd shows as a skeleton schedule [more math with probabilities], and allows students to work collaboratively to research the additional points of interest [following anchor activities]. We travel in huge RVs to limit hotel and eating concerns, and to allow convenience conveyance of projects and supplies [more math using spatial concepts]. Students build blog to maintain daily contact with friends and family. For a while they will be submitting all their homework/projects to their teachers via The Cloud as well. Teachers will collaborate to make this seem real.

Initially, this idea required quite a bit of time and I wondered "hOly smokE, what am I doing...I'm still getting over being sick!!"  However, as I built the list of shows and the anchor lessons to accompany each leg of the trip, and then prepared the map, I got more excited. The preliminary letter, map, and agenda lays out an overview. The map shows the broad outline of the trip.

Done in Google Maps, I can engage the collaboration option allowing the students to research and add destinations surrounding the gourd shows or along the way that pertain to the anchor lessons. This enhances the depth of learning by engaging their critical thinking skills and personal interests. They become active learners!

By working with other teachers in the building, professional collaboration could add an additional layer of authenticity. The Great Gourdeous Educational Escape is so broad, all of the ISTE NETS-T standards could be met: inspiring learning and creativity, developing digital age learning experiences, modeling digital research information and mapping, promoting awareness of of cultural and global diversity with digital tools, and leading/collaborating with professional peers to coordinate and use digital tools as if a real journey were taking place.

Georgia Gourd Society's Greer Peters leads the meditative light.

Feel the karma baby, feel the gourding karma!