Christen Lawicki
New Media and
New Literacies
Information
Literacy Guide
This information
literacy guide is geared towards upper elementary students, for grades three to
five (but could be used for older grades, as well). The focus of the guide is to show students
different tools they can use to create presentations for research they conduct. It also explains how students can publish
their presented work so that they can continue to share with other people on a
larger scale (this is done along the lines of there being a classroom blog that
students can access). This guide offers
a smaller list of choices for presentation and sharing tools, as it is meant
for a younger audience. The tools listed
do not have any type of age restriction, as a number of online resources
do. The point of this is to help young
students get their feet wet and start exploring different digital resources so
that they can see there are many different ways they can create presentations. (The only note to keep in mind is that some
websites do require an e-mail address, so this would only work if the students
had one set up with the school).
Elementary
Presentation Guide
Sharing
your work with others in different ways
Once you have
worked hard, done your research, and have become an expert on a topic, how can
you share your work with others? Instead of just telling others about what you
learned, create an exciting presentation to show
them!
Here are some
tools you can use to make a unique presentation and engage others in your work:
PowerPoint Presentation
- This allows you to create a slideshow with your
information that you can customize in different ways. You can use different colors, fonts,
transitions, add pictures, audio, and even video clips!
- This is a program that is on the computer and you do not
need to sign up for
Prezi
- Prezi is similar to PowerPoint, but creates a different
looking presentation. Instead of
slides, you have a pathway that zooms around different parts of a larger
picture. There are different themes
you can choose from to really add excitement and connect to your
presentation topic!
- This is a website that you need to create a free account
for: https://prezi.com
Powtoon
- Powtoon is a fun way to make a presentation that adds a
little something extra and goes a step further than PowerPoint and
Prezi…it helps you create an animated presentation! Using the templates, you can create a
short video presentation. Instead
of just slides, your whole presentation is a video with animation and
music.
- This is a website that you need to create a free account
for: https://www.powtoon.com
Video Presentation
- If you are feeling adventurous, another way to present
information is to create your own video!
You can record yourself speaking, take videos of different places
and things, and even interview others (with their permission, of
course).
- You would create this video using our classroom iPad and
upload the video onto the computer.
Once you have
created your own presentation, you can share it with the whole class by adding
it to our classroom blog! This way,
everyone in the class can see all of your hard work and you can go back and
show others what you have researched.
