PowerPoint
- Use fonts 24 points or larger for the text.
- Use dark type and light background for the overhead/slide.
- Avoid USING ALL CAPS. (The normal use of upper and lowercase characters is easier to read.)
- Use Italics or color rather than underline to emphasize a point. (Underline makes some characters difficult to read.)
- Limit seven words per line and eight lines per overhead/slide.
- Use the overhead/slide as a guide for presentation.
- Face the audience when showing the overhead/slide.
- Distribute a copy of the overheads/slides to students ahead of time if possible.
- Keep the room lights on and avoid showing slides in a dark room for more than 15 minutes (Dark rooms can make students drowsy.)
- Avoid putting students in a passive mode of receiving information by combining the overhead/slide presentation with chalkboard/whiteboard use or other learning activities.
- Have a backup plan in case of a power outage or equipment failure.
There is also:
Using Video Clips in Presentation
Using Video Clips in Presentation
- Have a clear goal for using a video clip or clips (e.g., ask yourself why you are using the clip and what you want to students to learn from it).
- Provide proper context for your clip(s) (e.g., explain that a clip comes from a sequence or part of a story or conversation).
- View the entire clip before bringing it to class and design activities to accompany the clip.
- Limit the length of video clips. No matter how interesting they may be or how motivated students are, video clips longer than 10 minutes may fail to hold students’ attention.
Here is a You Tube video; https://youtu.be/9GorqroigqM, Watch it!
Upcycling Textbooks, an organization that encourages followers to rescue those mildewing textbooks from the back of the classroom and turn them into something new and cool. Like, for instance:
Cathy: @UpcyclingTxtbks
The organization’s admirable mission is to rehabilitate the textbook as a learning tool – just a different kind, and one that can be used in conjunction with a move towards a much needed streamlining of learning materials into the digital format.
If you have old textbooks you’re no longer using, haul them back out to the front of the room, get out a big pair of scissors, and let the kids have at it. Whether you take a moment to brainstorm ideas first, or simply let ideas come together as they go, kids will have a ball folding and taping and reshaping, until they’ve made, oh, I don’t know, the coolest textbook-fedora-necklace-bow-tie-plant holder around.
You could also give students art supplies, and have them draw on textbooks to illustrate what’s on the pages, whether directly or at the emotional level:
Make sure to upload student pieces to the Upcycling Textbooks site or share them on the project’s social media accounts so that your students can see their textbook creativity featured on a worldwide stage. The site also features tutorials, so getting started is a breeze!
2. Trace the Life of a Product you’d think that young children, who may still be developing their object permanence, would be the only ones who assume that products magically appear in front of them without much happening to make it so, but adults are pretty bad at grasping the concept of the industrial production process as well. And how many of us are guilty of throwing items in the trash or recycling bin and never thinking about them again?
In truth, the life of a product is most often a fascinating one, with the potential to teach students not just about where the objects that surround them come from, but also about the way our economy and marketplaces work as a whole.
One great place to start in teaching this is the podcast Planet Money’s t-shirt project. On the site, students can trace the entire life of a t-shirt, from conceptualization and design to picking out the right materials abroad to working with manufacturers to shipping it to consumers. There are numerous podcast episodes tracing this journey as well, which would make for great listening on the school bus.
For a more environmental angle, students might enjoy the 21-minute documentary, The Story of Stuff. Here, students will trace the life of a product, and will therefore see the true impact of each item they buy. From here, you might ask your students what problems they spot along the way, and have them brainstorm ways to fix them.
Either of these activities would work as the setup for an upcycling project, as students will be motivated to make new use of the old objects that surround them, thereby interrupting the path to the landfill.
3. Throw a Class Yard SaleWith strapped budgets to contend with, educators try their best to reuse old materials as much as they can. But every classroom will need to get rid of items at the end of the year. It just so happens that this coincides with a more general yard sale season, meaning that many students’ families will be looking to clean out their homes.
Together, that could make for a great class yard sale (though I would suggest items should be offered for free) and school wide upcycling project. Gather items on the sports fields, and have kids pick out whatever they need to create their most creative imaginings. You’ll be giving old items new life, getting those ancient clunkers out of your classroom, and making art that will truly spice up the school hallways and student homes.
Not feeling the yard sale option? No worries. Just make this into a “How Many Ways?” project. Take your students on a spin through a good upcycling Pinterest board, have them bring in a few objects from home (or you can collect some on your own), pile materials on the floor, and let them go for it!
4. Make Your Own Class ThroneUpcycling individually is fine and dandy, but how about collaborating on a class project, like making a class throne to place up at the front of the classroom? This could be used to encourage students who are usually shy to come to the front of the classroom to offer up their knowledge or answer questions. Alternatively, you could place an upcycled chair into a reading nook, and rotate who gets to sit in it when. You better bet they’ll be motivated to read when they know they’ve got their upcycled leisure chair to look forward to.
5. Write Blackout PoetrySeveral months back, teacher Sherry Fisher let me in on just about the coolest writing project ever: blackout poetry. The project is much like it sounds: students take old textbooks and blackout the majority of the words, leaving just the few they want for their poem. This activity can be done on its own, or as a way of demonstrating deeper understanding of a text. You might, for example, ask students to blackout their favorite page from the Shakespearian play you’re reading, and to do it in a manner that reflects the emotional tone of that scene.
(Cathy: @SMMFisherImage courtesy of Sherry Fisher and her students)
6. Organize the Classroom Many educators are familiar with upcycling because they’re already using it as a way to organize their classrooms. Just take a look at a few of these great ideas from Pinterest.
An old sweater adds some new life to a crayon-storage can. Tin cans with their bottoms cut out are mounted to the wall and used to store worksheets or magazines. A dishrack holds picture books. And the list goes on.
In ShortTo say that the “possibilities of upcycling are endless” wouldn’t just be cliché, it’d be redundant – because, really, creating endless possibilities with everyday objects defines what upcycling is. This means upcycling is a great lesson and even more fun not just for the kids but for you, too. And it just so happens, there are powerful lessons to learn about environmental stewardship, industrial production, and creativity along the way.
Please share with us your greatest upcycling ideas, projects, and photos in the comments below, and by pinging us on twitter!
Cathy: @UpcyclingTxtbks
The organization’s admirable mission is to rehabilitate the textbook as a learning tool – just a different kind, and one that can be used in conjunction with a move towards a much needed streamlining of learning materials into the digital format.
If you have old textbooks you’re no longer using, haul them back out to the front of the room, get out a big pair of scissors, and let the kids have at it. Whether you take a moment to brainstorm ideas first, or simply let ideas come together as they go, kids will have a ball folding and taping and reshaping, until they’ve made, oh, I don’t know, the coolest textbook-fedora-necklace-bow-tie-plant holder around.
You could also give students art supplies, and have them draw on textbooks to illustrate what’s on the pages, whether directly or at the emotional level:
Make sure to upload student pieces to the Upcycling Textbooks site or share them on the project’s social media accounts so that your students can see their textbook creativity featured on a worldwide stage. The site also features tutorials, so getting started is a breeze!
2. Trace the Life of a Product you’d think that young children, who may still be developing their object permanence, would be the only ones who assume that products magically appear in front of them without much happening to make it so, but adults are pretty bad at grasping the concept of the industrial production process as well. And how many of us are guilty of throwing items in the trash or recycling bin and never thinking about them again?
In truth, the life of a product is most often a fascinating one, with the potential to teach students not just about where the objects that surround them come from, but also about the way our economy and marketplaces work as a whole.
One great place to start in teaching this is the podcast Planet Money’s t-shirt project. On the site, students can trace the entire life of a t-shirt, from conceptualization and design to picking out the right materials abroad to working with manufacturers to shipping it to consumers. There are numerous podcast episodes tracing this journey as well, which would make for great listening on the school bus.
For a more environmental angle, students might enjoy the 21-minute documentary, The Story of Stuff. Here, students will trace the life of a product, and will therefore see the true impact of each item they buy. From here, you might ask your students what problems they spot along the way, and have them brainstorm ways to fix them.
Either of these activities would work as the setup for an upcycling project, as students will be motivated to make new use of the old objects that surround them, thereby interrupting the path to the landfill.
3. Throw a Class Yard SaleWith strapped budgets to contend with, educators try their best to reuse old materials as much as they can. But every classroom will need to get rid of items at the end of the year. It just so happens that this coincides with a more general yard sale season, meaning that many students’ families will be looking to clean out their homes.
Together, that could make for a great class yard sale (though I would suggest items should be offered for free) and school wide upcycling project. Gather items on the sports fields, and have kids pick out whatever they need to create their most creative imaginings. You’ll be giving old items new life, getting those ancient clunkers out of your classroom, and making art that will truly spice up the school hallways and student homes.
Not feeling the yard sale option? No worries. Just make this into a “How Many Ways?” project. Take your students on a spin through a good upcycling Pinterest board, have them bring in a few objects from home (or you can collect some on your own), pile materials on the floor, and let them go for it!
4. Make Your Own Class ThroneUpcycling individually is fine and dandy, but how about collaborating on a class project, like making a class throne to place up at the front of the classroom? This could be used to encourage students who are usually shy to come to the front of the classroom to offer up their knowledge or answer questions. Alternatively, you could place an upcycled chair into a reading nook, and rotate who gets to sit in it when. You better bet they’ll be motivated to read when they know they’ve got their upcycled leisure chair to look forward to.
5. Write Blackout PoetrySeveral months back, teacher Sherry Fisher let me in on just about the coolest writing project ever: blackout poetry. The project is much like it sounds: students take old textbooks and blackout the majority of the words, leaving just the few they want for their poem. This activity can be done on its own, or as a way of demonstrating deeper understanding of a text. You might, for example, ask students to blackout their favorite page from the Shakespearian play you’re reading, and to do it in a manner that reflects the emotional tone of that scene.
(Cathy: @SMMFisherImage courtesy of Sherry Fisher and her students)
6. Organize the Classroom Many educators are familiar with upcycling because they’re already using it as a way to organize their classrooms. Just take a look at a few of these great ideas from Pinterest.
An old sweater adds some new life to a crayon-storage can. Tin cans with their bottoms cut out are mounted to the wall and used to store worksheets or magazines. A dishrack holds picture books. And the list goes on.
In ShortTo say that the “possibilities of upcycling are endless” wouldn’t just be cliché, it’d be redundant – because, really, creating endless possibilities with everyday objects defines what upcycling is. This means upcycling is a great lesson and even more fun not just for the kids but for you, too. And it just so happens, there are powerful lessons to learn about environmental stewardship, industrial production, and creativity along the way.
Please share with us your greatest upcycling ideas, projects, and photos in the comments below, and by pinging us on twitter!
All made from recycled materials.
References:
The Regents of the University of Michigan. (2014). Practical guidelines for using technology tools in classroom teaching. Retrieved from http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/p4_3
This is a great resource to use for classroom ideas.
Photo credit: Fedora & Tutorial Aygul Idiyatullina (Separate Fedora image: Craig Joiner
Photo Credit: Succulent Literature – Chrstina Ferguson Photo Craig Joiner
Photo Credit: Bow Tie – Etsy Artist Judy Maranger Photo: Maria Abraham
Masks – Mika Tanisaki, Photo Maria Abraham
Photo Credit: Beads – Mika Tanisaki
Levy, L., & EDUDEMIC. (2015, September 22). Turn textbooks into art & get creative with upcycling. Retrieved from http://www.edudemic.com/textbook-upcycling/