The ‘third way’ in creating engaging presentations? PptPlex brings canvas functionality to PowerPoint
Over the last few weeks I have been looking at a few technologies which have appeared on my radar and which I think are worth sharing with other educationalists/technologists. In case you want to track back and take a look at the previous posts they are below:
- Pogoplug for a great online storage system you can access anywhere.
- Animotofor compelling videos on the fly.
- Animotothoughts from Chris Thomson.
- Prezi for engaging presentations which show overview and depth.
- Prezi thoughts from twitter and the blog.
Today I wanted to look at a possible ‘third way’ when looking at presentation technology. Whereas Prezi is often seen as the antidote to PowerPoint this may be an issue if you have lots of great PowerPoint presentations which you want to keep using but like the functionality offered in Prezi. Well in this case perhaps pptPlex is for you.
PptPlex is another technology which has come out of Microsoft Office Labs and is an add on to PowerPoint. It gives a canvas style functionality which allows you to move around your slides in a non-linear fashion. Microsoft have produced a quick overview video which will help to get a flavour of what you can do with pptPlex.
A number of people on twitter and the blog likened the functionality you get with pptPlex to that which you can get in Prezi and there are clearly significant overlaps. I also watched a presenter use the technology at a conference recently to great effect. The advantage for him is he has a dozen or more presentations which he put on to a canvas and was able to jump around looking at different topics as and when he wanted. More interestingly when I spoke to him at the end of his session he said he thought the real benefit was he could respond to the audience and never felt he had to cover everything in the canvas.
Thinking about the classroom there is a really useful video which gives both a demonstration of how you use pptPlex and an example of a learning based application.
Thoughts on ‘Death by PowerPoint and Prezi’ Responses from the blog and twitter
The last post on ‘Prezi- the end of death by PowerPoint?’ led to a good debate on twitter and the blog and I thought it would be useful to share what others had to say. I also have some examples from a few people which are worth sharing.
Nick Dennis an Assistant Headteacher @nickdennis commented
‘I agree that Prezi is not the solution but that is because the tool is not the main thing (Keynote and PowerPoint 2010 included) but the human behind it. Some of the best presentations I have seen consisted of nothing more than pictures and that was because the presenter had really thought about it..’
Also in agreement was @simfin who said
‘Rubbish in-rubbish out. and PowerPoint doesn’t kill interest, bullet points do.’
He also shared a blog post on effective presentations he has written which can be viewed here
Witty thoughts from other twitter members can in the form of @tonyparkin who said:
‘Is death by Prezi any less painful than death by PowerPoint, or merely less expensive?’
and @stevegillott who made the same observation as me in saying:
‘Prezi – the start of motion sickness due to badly designed Prezis.’
Beyond the comments a number of people shared what they felt were good examples of the capability of Prezis.
@mattmoo2 has created a presentation introducing the Internet to people:
@chrisrat has a presentation on emarketing and social networking:
Prezi- the end of death by PowerPoint?
As many of you will know I have never been one to be on the bleeding edge of new technology. I tend to pick up things which have been around for a year or so when they are more mainstream and this is probably the case with Prezi. A few weeks ago I was in a meeting when I saw Prezi for the first time and it certainly caught my eye. Prezi is a reaction to the dullness of presentations such as those labelled ‘death by powerpoint’. It has zoomable functionality which allows the presenter to show the big picture and also zoom into detail. A video explaining Prezi in greater detail can be viewed below.
I found this video in itself a bit dull as a form of presentation! I had a look around at examples of actual presentations using Prezi and the one below is probably a good example in showing some of the functionality that comes with the web based software.
Prezi Tips and Tricks on Prezi
Does Prezi mean the end of ‘death by PowerPoint?’
In short my view is no. I think Prezi has the potential to be another good presentation medium which can be engaging in the hands of a skilled presenter who has created a stimulating presentation. In itself I have seen some excellent presentations using PowerPoint and they all have something in common. They are carefully put together, predominantly image and video based over text and are used by a skilled presenter. With the arrival of Office 2010 PowerPoint has made a big step forward with tools which will engage the viewer if well used. Prezi genuinely offers something different in the ability to link overview and detail as well as the spontaneity to quickly skip around a presentation or presentations. At the same time although the technology caught my eye when I saw Prezi the actual presentation was dire and confusing. I feel sure it will be just as easy to suffer a deadly Prezi as it is to be killed by PowerPoint.
VLEs, MLEs and SharePoint 2010 as a Learning Platform- the series so far 1-12.
As we head to the weekend I thought it would be useful to link up the posts I have been writing over the last two weeks on VLEs, MLEs and SharePoint 2010 as a Learning Platform. So far we are 12 posts in to the 15 post series and you can get all the links to each post below. Posts 13-15 will continue into the next week.
Post 1 What is a VLE?
Post 2 How does a VLE support learning? (part 1)
Post 3 How does a VLE support learning? (part 2)
Post 4 Why should educational institutions consider implementing a VLE?
Post 5 What is an MLE?
Post 6 What is a SharePoint Learning Platform?
Post 7 VLE, Learning Gateway or Learning Platform? Guest blog post from SharePoint MVP Alex Pearce
Post 8 Features of a SharePoint Learning Platform- MIS Integration
Post 9 Features of a SharePoint Learning Platfom- VLE
Post 10 Features of a SharePoint Learning Platfom- Tagging and Rating
Post 11 Features of a SharePoint Learning Platfom- The Power of Search (1 of 3)
Post 12 Features of a SharePoint Learning Platfom- The Power of Search (2 of 3)
Post 13 Features of a SharePoint Learning Platfom The Power of Searcch (3 of 3)
Post 14 Features of a SharePoint Learning Platfom- Social Features
Post 15 Where to find more
Features of a SharePoint 2010 Learning Platform- The power of search for learning (2 of 3)
Filed under: SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, e-learning
In the last post we started to cover the elements of search which have the potential to impact on learning. You can pick up that post from here if you missed it. As well as different ways of refining searches today I wanted to look at federated search and the ability to instantly review search queries and results within the browser.
Federated Search
SharePoint 2007 contained federated search but this has seen improvements within SharePoint 2010. The key premise is the ability to search others sources beyond resources living within your SharePoint. This has the potential to be a major application within education as the ability to bring in search results from search engines and sites like Wikipedia and Youtube will allow students to complete research from multiple sources all from within SharePoint. From a collaborative perspective it also allows searches to be performed across multiple SharePoint sites so that federations of schools can share their data quickly and easily. External databases can also be searched so that many of the administrative elements of a school can be enhanced by the ability to use SharePoint as a central search point.
Image from http://www.scolab.ch/kat/technologie/sharepoint-2007/page/12
Search Suggestions
As well as federated search students will benefit from the ‘Google type’ experience of suggestions. These come in two forms with the pre query suggestions as you are typing and the ’did you mean’ responses when returning a search result. Pre-query suggestions are based on previous searches so the more SharePoint is used the more suggestions appear in a similar way to Google. The ‘did you mean’ suggestions are based on the content in the indexing and although some might argue that this aids students too much it more closely reflects the web world they live in.
Pre-query suggestions
Post query 'did you mean' suggestions
Features of a SharePoint 2010 Learning Platform- The power of search for learning (1 of 3)
A long running debate within our team at Twynham has taken place about the most important aspect of a SharePoint Learning Platform. Dave Coleman has always argued that search is the key attribute which makes the learning experience vastly improved within SharePoint. Although I did not agree with Dave that search was key with SharePoint 2007 it has made major steps forward in SharePoint 2010 and in many ways is now comparable with the same search experience learners will find with the Internet.
The diagram below shows a breakdown of the different types of search you can get with SharePoint 2010.
Faceted Search in SharePoint 2010
One of the biggest challenges with schools is the vast amount of information which can end up sitting on the Learning Platform. With SharePoint 2010 search results which bring up a large number of responses now come with a refinement panel which allows you to filter results by site, author, modified data and tag. You can instantly see how a teacher or student will use this to sift through information and find the most relevant resource for them. An example of the refinement panel can be seen below.
Complex keyword search
Of course you want learners to refine the search results but perhaps more importantly you want them to be able to refine their search terms. This is now possible in SharePoint 2010 with the ability for example to use AND, NOT and OR to further specify what you are looking for. To use a History example you may choose a search of ‘Hitler AND Mussolini’ if you wanted to focus on the relationship of the two dictators. This would likely bring up the Pact of Steel or Munich Conference where the two leaders are referenced together. You could also choose ‘Hitler NOT Mussolini’ if you wanted to look at Nazi activity unrelated to the Italian relationship. Finally if you wanted to generally search for the two dictators for research but it did not matter which one (for example if you were looking in general at fascist European leaders) you could search ‘Hitler OR Mussolini’. As Agnes Molnar showed in her recent article on EndUser SharePoint it is possible to then undertake more complex search as you can see below.
Features of a SharePoint 2010 Learning Platform- Tagging and Rating
Filed under: SharePoint, SharePoint 2010, Social Computing, e-learning
Having looked at MIS and VLE integration it is time to move on to one of the more powerful and often underused features of a Learning Platform- tagging and rating. This feature has made significant steps forward from SharePoint 2007 and in SharePoint 2010 it has genuine potential to support the learning process through reflection and review.
Tagging and Rating
In many ways the arrival of SharePoint 2010 has led to the liberation for end users who are now active participants. This is immediately obvious in the ability to rate documents within SharePoint 2010 as can be seen below.
The image shows end user ratings for documents and files on a 1-5 star system. Although it is a simple system it has the potential to be profoundly useful for teachers and learners. One of the biggest challenges within SharePoint 2007 for an educator was knowing which resources are proving most useful for support and study. With a simple 1-5 system it is instantly possible to see which resources students are finding most useful. This can allow the ‘bubbling up’ of the best resources to the top so that they can instantly be viewed when accessing a page. The same system can be applied to a multimedia library as shown below.
Of course a 1-5 star rating has its limitations in terms of the amount of feedback it gives the creator. You could create a document which you thought would be very useful but which gets a low rating- why? This is where tagging comes in. This gives the end user the ability to add additional metadata to a resource which can include an explanation of why the like it. The ‘I like it’ feature is shown both above and below in the top right corner of the ribbon.
Students can then add information about why the liked the resource which can support teachers in adaptation or the future development of resources. This is shown below.
As you can hopefully see tagging and rating have significant potential to be useful in the development of a better learning environment both for teachers and learners.
Features of a SharePoint Learning Platform- VLE Integration
Another feature of a SharePoint Learning Platform is the integration of a VLE. The most common and best integrated solution for SharePoint is the SLK or SharePoint Learning Kit. This is currently being upgraded by the SLK co-coordinator Richard Willis for SharePoint 2010 and should be available in August.
At Twynham School we use an authoring tool called Author Expert which I will be covering in greater detail next week but here are some screenshots of what is possible. The first shows the ability to integrate images into the scorm resource. As well as this you can embed flash files, audio and video files as well as word and PowerPoint files for a rich media experience.
In addition to creating instructional elements to deliver to learners it is possible to compile a range of quizzes and tests which can be delivered, completed, marked and reviewed. The image below shows a Multiple Choice and Multiple Selection example.
A
As a final example, with high quality authoring tools it is possible to create a wide range of question types to vary assessment and reflection. Below the image shows a drag and drop exercise which is completed at the end of a unit to demonstrate understanding.
There is of course much more to say about the VLE potential within a SharePoint Learning Platform and I intend the devote most of next week to covering the SLK and particularly authoring tools.
