PowerPoint vs. Prezi

Last week Vanesa and I worked on a new practical work for ECO. We had to design a lesson  in which we had to include a PowerPoint Presentation and a Prezi one.

It was a very interesting task but we had to think a lot in order to be creative and to plan a good lesson.

Anyway, we succeeded in doing it. 

We made both the PP Presentation and the Prezi. The former was easy to do since we were accustomed to use it, but Prezi was new and we had to learn how to do so. 

First, we spent a few minutes checking it out, but it turned out that it wasn't that difficult. Since Prezi works online, you have to register in order to use it. Once you have done it, you have to choose the templates for your presentation, and let me tell you that they are really nice and appealing to the eye. Then you write the title, and add the images, videos, music, texts you want. You can also change the framework of each template. When you finish your work, you just save it or share it, and it is done.

Using presentations could be very useful in your lessons for presenting new topics, reviewing some contents you have taught, and even for playing (you can create some games with PowerPoint), and it can also give a fresh air to some classroom routines, such us using the blackboard, the coursebook, or their notebooks.

I strongly recommend you to give it a try to these kinds of presentations, your students will like it and you will catch their attention more easily by using great images, songs, or videos. 

Click here and you see the PP Presentation we made.

A little bit of humour!

This joke epitomizes our reality nowadays.

Here is an anecdote: the other day, I was with my little neighbour and she asked me to use my computer. I said "Yes" and I thought that she would need my help, so I said "Come with me that I'll teach you how to use it". But this 5-years old girl told me: "No, Belén, I can do it myself. I know how to use a computer, it's very easy!" I couldn't believe she would be able to use it alone, but I let her try it. At the end, SHE taught me how to play!!! She was able to open web pages without any problems. 

If Prensky heard this conversation, he would say that my little neighbour is a  Digital Native, and I am a Digital Immigrant. He introduces these two concepts to make reference to the existing difference between young people and adults in this new Digital Age. 

Being a Digital Native means being able to "speak the digital language of computers, video games, and Internet." (Prensky, 2001). In other words, a Digital Native is a person who has grown up and lived all his life surrounded by technology. According to the author, these are the students nowadays; the ones that having all this knowledge and being multi-task get bored in the lesson with its old methods and contents.

On the other hand, the concept of Digital Immigrant refers to those people who know almost nothing about technology because they have lived in the previous age, before the Digital Technology Age took place. It is really difficult for these people to work with computers, Internet, videos, and the like.

Prensky says that teachers are Digital Immigrants, and here is where the problem appears. Teaching becomes a hard task when it is done the 'old way' with students that ask for new and up-to-date things. However, it is a matter of attitude. If you want to change your way of teaching, to make it modern and appealing to current students, you just have to study and investigate to find ways to do it. Prensky can help you; in this paper - which I have already mentioned and tagged in a previous post - you will see some methods really useful to start implementing technology in your classroom.

Little by little ♪

Hi there! It's time to reflect.
First of all, I must admit that it's really difficult for me to work with technology and all these new things.
Last week, we had to do a practical work for ECO II and in order to fulfil it we had to use different tools that were really new for me, such as Google.docs and pdf files. At the very beginning I felt really lost, but then, with my teacher's help and with the famous trial-and-error I learned how to manage them!
And let me tell you that Google.docs are a blessing!!! When I discovered this tool, I stopped using Microsoft Word.
Google.docs have many advantages, for instance, if you have to do a practical work in group, and you and your classmates live far away from each other, you can create a Google.doc, add your classmates, and start working online from your house. Besides, you also have a 'chat box' where you can discuss about your work with them, and then write what you have decided on the document.
Another benefit is that everything you do or write in the document is saved instantly, no matter what happens. In the town where I live, electricity always shuts off, and for this reason I've lost too many works, but that won't happen again! Now everything I have to write, I do it in a Google.doc, without being worried about losing what I'm doing.