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Leadership Day 2009

Dr. Scott McLeod of the blog Dangerously Irrelevant put out a challenge for all edu bloggers to write a post related to effective school technology leadership.  Below is my contribution to Leadership Day 2009: I have found that the biggest hinderance to effective school technology is not a lack of funding, resources, or technology.  The biggest hinderance has been teachers who are unwilling to learn something new.  For me, “life long learner” describes the ideal teacher.  There are many reasons teachers find not to learn to use technologies to increase student learning.  They may be overwhelmed with duties and tasks currently being imposed on them by administration.  They may have lesson plans that they created 20 years ago that they have become so attached to they can’t imagine adjusting or scrapping them.   They may have inadequate technology support so even when they do use technology, it never works properly and they throw in the towel.  They may believe that they don’t have time in the curriculum to add “one more thing”.  They may believe that they don’t have time in general to learn something new.  All of these issues need to be addressed, but at the heart of every teacher needs to live one thing.  A desire to learn.  Excellent teachers need to be constantly learning, and modeling that learning process to the students they teach.  They must be willing to adapt their lessons and teaching as the world changes to properly prepare the students they teach.  For effective school technology implimentation, administrators need to change the culture of the school.  They must nurture and encourage teachers as learners.  They must ensure that teachers have the proper support so that when they do learn to use a new piece of technology, it is working consistently.  I believe if administorators truly transformed the school into a rich learning environment for teachers and students, the technology use would naturally begin to fall into place.

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Prezi

Posted by admin | Posted in Foreign Language, Geography, History, Interactive Whiteboard, Language Arts, Math, Middle/High School, Primary Elementary, Science, Secondary Elementary, Teacher Resources, Websites | Posted on 12-01-2009

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What it is:  Prezi is a unique online presentation builder that seems to be popping up a lot lately all over the web.  It is getting so much attention because of its new approach to online slide shows.  Prezi has some unique features like zooming presentations that grab and hold viewers attention.  Prezi lets you create a sort of walking path through your presentation.  The finished product is engaging and impressive looking.  The tools in Prezi are different from other online presentation builders but are easy to use and figure out.  The tutorial will have you and your students creating in minutes.  

 

How to integrate Prezi into the classroom:   Because of Prezi’s unique zooming feature, it would be a good tool for students to use for vocabulary.  Students can type in the word to be defined and then zoom in on the definition.  Building vocabulary presentations would be good for review and study.  Prezi would also be a neat way to explore and display information from history (display a date, place, or person in history and then zoom into facts and details that are related), timeline information (create paths from different dates in Prezi), literature (create a sort of interactive character map of any literary character), science projects (use Prezi’s path to lead through the scientific method), foreign language (type a word in another language and zoom to translate), geography (zoom into details around a map), math, and much more. 

 

Tips: Be sure to check out the tutorial on Prezi, it will have you up and creating in no time!  Check out the inspiration to see the amazing things that others have used Prezi to create.

 

Leave a comment and tell us how you are using Prezi in your classroom.

Comments (1)

Prezi: Potential for Powerful Presentations | Thinkin' Thoughts said on 30-01-2009

[...] in an hour, I was able to create a potentially powerful presentation. iLearn Technology has some excellent suggestions for teachers wanting students to use [...]

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