21st Century Skills are essential for educators to obtain in order to utilize the new tools being provided to educators. While many educators dred the idea of lecturing students, having effective presentation skills are essential to teach concepts. Presenting in the 21st Century can be as simple or as complicated as you would like to make it. With the tools being provided today such as PowerPoint, Prezi.com, and SMART Notebook, creating engaging and interactive presentations is easier than ever. Below, you will find examples of tools utlized to create effective presentations in the classroom.
The PowerPoint presentation available for download below is an example of a tool used for a group presentation. PowerPoint is an easy to use tool that allows for pictures, text, video, and other media to be attached to slides and shown to a group of people. This tool is especially good for groups of people who wish to create a presentation together, but may not be able to meet up in person to create it. As a group, each member created the slides for their own section of the presentation, and as the presentation was updated, the newest version of the PowerPoint file was sent to group members. This allowed all members to see the changes that were made, and discussions could take place in the emails that the file was attached to.
Educators should also consider teaching the use of this tool to students. This tool is fun and easy to use, and allows students to present their projects in a new and easy format. It also provides a new way to assess students and teach 21st Century Skills.
Below you will find the link to a Prezi presentation created about the discrepant event created by corks and surface tension. The website Prezi is a free online tool for creating presentations. What makes Prezi unique is the way the presentations flows. The information may be put on a picture, and the entire screen will move from area to area in a visually appealing way. This is a fun and engaging way to make presentations, however it is important to note that the movement of the slides may be hard for some students to follow or make them dizzy due to the fast movement if the presentation is shown on a large screen. For this reason, it is important to know your audience before using the tool.
The link below will bring you to a website known as SMART Exchange. At this website, teachers may share and use lessons created for SMART Board technology. Teachers may search for lessons based on grade, subject, or file type. This is a useful way to plan and create unique and engaging presentations.