How the New Media makes Teaching more interesting
Teaching, one could say, is in a way a
performance. At the core of this performance is the way the teacher presents
the given content to his / her class. In order to succeed most teachers use a
lot of different techniques, be it different social forms, rhetoric or
extraordinary input for the pupils. Powerpoint and Microsoft word brought about
a revolution in the ways teachers are able to compose the material for their
classes. For worksheets they did not have to rely on the copying machine any
more and arranging information and videoclips did not require a constant change
between overhead projector and cassette recorder.
Although this change brought with it a lot of possibilities, there was also a lot of room for bad worksheets and for an overload with information for the pupils on Powerpoint slides. Creating good material for teaching does not only require the ability to handle the software but also basic knowledge about how to arrange the content in a useful way. An example almost everybody knows from his / her time at school is the worksheet that has a lot of arbitrary clip arts on them, that have nothing to do with the task at hand. Most of those stem from the notion of the teachers that a good worksheets needs to have some illustration.
There is some truth at the core of this assumption. Illustrations make every lesson more interesting. With today's medial possibilities this can not only be pictures but also videos that can be incorporated into presentations. The big question is where to find suitable images and clips for one's purpose. Not every teacher has the creative skills (or the time) to make the designs himself / herself.
A field where illustrations are the more important is foreign language education. In a lot of worksheets the pictures are not only there for a good design, but give away hints for vocabulary that is needed. Luckily today there are a lot of different tools, that help teachers create interesting pieces of art for their worksheets and presentations.
One of these tools is bitstrips.com. Basically it offers the possibility to create little comic strips. When making one of these comics one can choose how many frames are needed to tell the story. There are a lot of pre-set designs that can be used to create the different pictures. There are for example different backgrounds, characters and accessories that can be combined. The scene could for example be set on the moon, the main character couls be E.T. and he can hold a guitar in his hands with notes flying all around into outer space. Also the gestures and facial expressions of the characters can be changed.
How does this help a foreign language educator? He / she could fpr example can create a worksheet with a little story on it with the task that the pupils retell the story in their own words. This way he can choose characters and a setting he / she thinks suitable for his /her class. Furthermore students will appreciate the individual touch for such a worksheet. Printed in colour this makes for a very innovative piece of work.
Although this change brought with it a lot of possibilities, there was also a lot of room for bad worksheets and for an overload with information for the pupils on Powerpoint slides. Creating good material for teaching does not only require the ability to handle the software but also basic knowledge about how to arrange the content in a useful way. An example almost everybody knows from his / her time at school is the worksheet that has a lot of arbitrary clip arts on them, that have nothing to do with the task at hand. Most of those stem from the notion of the teachers that a good worksheets needs to have some illustration.
There is some truth at the core of this assumption. Illustrations make every lesson more interesting. With today's medial possibilities this can not only be pictures but also videos that can be incorporated into presentations. The big question is where to find suitable images and clips for one's purpose. Not every teacher has the creative skills (or the time) to make the designs himself / herself.
A field where illustrations are the more important is foreign language education. In a lot of worksheets the pictures are not only there for a good design, but give away hints for vocabulary that is needed. Luckily today there are a lot of different tools, that help teachers create interesting pieces of art for their worksheets and presentations.
One of these tools is bitstrips.com. Basically it offers the possibility to create little comic strips. When making one of these comics one can choose how many frames are needed to tell the story. There are a lot of pre-set designs that can be used to create the different pictures. There are for example different backgrounds, characters and accessories that can be combined. The scene could for example be set on the moon, the main character couls be E.T. and he can hold a guitar in his hands with notes flying all around into outer space. Also the gestures and facial expressions of the characters can be changed.
How does this help a foreign language educator? He / she could fpr example can create a worksheet with a little story on it with the task that the pupils retell the story in their own words. This way he can choose characters and a setting he / she thinks suitable for his /her class. Furthermore students will appreciate the individual touch for such a worksheet. Printed in colour this makes for a very innovative piece of work.
Another tool that is really helpful when creating presentations is prezi.com. Most people would agree that the standard way would be to choose Powerpoint and use a number of different slides one after the other. Another point to agree on would be that most animations in the program are not very up to date and only seldom “make sense” in such away that they support the content.
Prezi is an online tool that lets the user create presentations in a new way. The basis is a big black board onto which text elements and pictures can be added. Shapes and arrows can be used to underline important pieces of information. The different elements can be rotated in every direction. This way an arrangement can be created that represents the relationship of the information.
In the presentation itself the view zooms in and out to the different pieces of text or the pictures and in a way “flies” through the presentation. This can be an abrupt zoom onto a hidden element or a zoom out to show the big picture. The positive effect of this way of presenting is that it creates a lot of interest. Most viewers are fascinated because this style of presenting is different from what they are used to. Also those presentations tend to make a lot more sense than the big information collections that Powerpoint presentations often are.
Here is an example for a biology lesson: http://prezi.com/boa21ytdaoxy/ap-bio-evolution-6-brief-history-of-life/
Prezi and Bitstrips are only two of the numerous new tools that have come up in the last years that make creating creative illustrations easier. They are however good examples because the first one falls in the important category of creating presentations for a lessons and the latter one helps making the good old worksheet more interesting. Teachers that take a little time to have a look into these innovative ways of designing material for their classes are bound to have more success with their students because everything new will create interest and that is what everybody in the business of teaching is after.
Prezi is an online tool that lets the user create presentations in a new way. The basis is a big black board onto which text elements and pictures can be added. Shapes and arrows can be used to underline important pieces of information. The different elements can be rotated in every direction. This way an arrangement can be created that represents the relationship of the information.
In the presentation itself the view zooms in and out to the different pieces of text or the pictures and in a way “flies” through the presentation. This can be an abrupt zoom onto a hidden element or a zoom out to show the big picture. The positive effect of this way of presenting is that it creates a lot of interest. Most viewers are fascinated because this style of presenting is different from what they are used to. Also those presentations tend to make a lot more sense than the big information collections that Powerpoint presentations often are.
Here is an example for a biology lesson: http://prezi.com/boa21ytdaoxy/ap-bio-evolution-6-brief-history-of-life/
Prezi and Bitstrips are only two of the numerous new tools that have come up in the last years that make creating creative illustrations easier. They are however good examples because the first one falls in the important category of creating presentations for a lessons and the latter one helps making the good old worksheet more interesting. Teachers that take a little time to have a look into these innovative ways of designing material for their classes are bound to have more success with their students because everything new will create interest and that is what everybody in the business of teaching is after.
