screen capture of presentation

Student presentations

A valuable way for students to share their knowledge, project outcomes and to improve their communication skills

Samples

Ending offending 'Our Message'

This website showcases work by students in Northern Territory Correctional facilities. It highlights their stories, projects, artwork, music etc.

Source Website to showcase outcomes of programs in correctional facilities.
URL http://www.ourmessage.org/justice/ourmessage/frameset.html
Use Students in correctional facilities undertaking a range of accredited programs.
Delivery website for delivery
Customisation  
Availability  

Software development projects

This website showcases the output from group projects. Final project artefacts and documents relating to each stage are shown. These public websites are used as a teaching resource of case studies for new classes and as a promotional tool for employers and industry.

Source Showcase of Student Software Development Projects at Swinburne TAFE
URL http://cit3.cdn.swin.edu.au/
Use Diploma or Advanced Diploma in Software Engineering
Delivery Website
Customisation  
Availability NA

Blogging to develop a research focus

Students were required to devise and research a contemporary topic and present their findings in a student webpage as well as contribute to a class blog

Source University of Sydney.
URL http://wiki.arts.usyd.edu.au/elearning/index.php/Blogging_to_develop_a_research_focus_(ARHT5908)
Use Business Arts students
Delivery Website, Wiki and Blog
Customisation Similar tools exist online, especially blogs and wikis.
Availability NA

Lets Talk

ESL students record short podcast presentations and interviews as well as posit questions for guest interviewees as part of their ESL class

Source AMES project
URL http://rosaspodcast.blogspot.com
Use Let's Talk is a space for a group of ESOL students, mostly new arrivals (AMEP), to broadcast short audio files recorded by them to practise their English. An example of using podcasts as a student presentation strategy.
Delivery Website, Wiki and Blog, Podcast social network site
Customisation Similar tools exist online, especially blogs, wiki and podcast sites.
Availability NA

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Why include online student presentations?

Learners are more likely to master and retain learning when they are required to present their work to others. It is a powerful incentive for learners to produce higher quality work if they know that others are going to view this work. Another option for teachers is to encourage other learners to comment on and give feedback on the work.

It is important to remember that placing work on display is quite confronting for some learners and that they need to be adequately prepared for the experience and supported in the technical aspects of preparing and uploading material.

Features

  • can be in a variety of formats and can include visuals, audio and media
  • presentations can be uploaded to open access websites or can sit behind a Learning Management System.
  • may include peer evaluation
  • may include alibility for feedback from presentation viewers/readers
  • may include multiple presentations at various times during a course whereby a learner can show the process they went through. This may be useful in authenticating learner work.

Student Presentations can be published using a variety of software and webbased tools including:

  • Learner Management System tools including student webpages, presentations and wikis
  • PowerPoint presentations
  • Slideshare presentations
  • Blogs
  • Class Wiki
  • Audio files developed into a Podcast
  • Video Files developed into a Videocast
  • Image files developed into a slideshow displayed on an image sharing site such as Flickr
  • Document sharing such as Google Docs
  • A collection of student generated or collected vidcasts, slideshares, podcasts, images integrated with text into a personal blog or class wiki or social networking sites
  • Purpose built website using online editing tools or webpage development software such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage

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Integrating online student presentations

Design steps

  1. Design an assessment task that you would like students to present to others.
  2. Provide learners with the goals and objectives of the presentation.
  3. Provide learners with instructions on the types of presentations that are possible (there are a range you can use. See Features above for a list of the possibilities).
    If you use Blogs, Wikis, Social Networking sites, Podcasting, Slidesharing, Videocasting or Photosharing tools, set up an aggregator (such as bloglines) so you can subscribe to your learners sites and view updates to their presentations as they publish them.
  4. Provide clear instructions and/or training for the learners on how to develop and upload their material
  5. Ensure learners are clear on copyright and defamation issues.
  6. If you want to include peer feedback you will need to give learners clear parameters for commenting. You may also want to a detailed rubric, which can be used to guide their evaluation.

Assessment

There are many options for including online presentations in the assessment process:

  • asking learners to present on a number of occasions throughout a course can allow you to witness the process of the development of an assessment task and help address issues of plagiarism
  • peer feedback and assessment may be one of the aspects of an online presentation
  • providing clear assessment criteria at the outset ensures that requirements unambiguous for learners.

Generic skills

Presenting work in either a textual, audio or visual format is a highly complex task and will help learners to develop a range of generic skills. These include:

  • communication skills (presenting material which is appropriate to the audience, sharing information effectively)
  • effective use of technology to develop and upload a presentation
  • problem solving and offering solutions and advice to other learners in a constructive way.

Technical notes

You may need to provide training for learners in the software package used to develop the online presentation (Powerpoint, Dreamweaver, Flash).

Often Learning Management Systems will have student presentation functionality available. You will need to set this up within your system and provide learners with instructions on how to access and upload their presentations.

Skills

You will need facilitation and mentoring skills to ensure that learners are guided appropriately to develop their presentation.

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See also

From the Framework

More resources from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework

  • E Tools and Tips
    Practical demonstrations of web 2.0 tools that can be used for eleaning and student presentations.
    http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go/home/projects/2007/pid/440
  • Networks, Connections and Community: Learning with Social Software
    The research investigates the use of social software in teaching and learning and in capability building and contributes to our understanding of the ways in which the development of social software broadens opportunities for organisations to deliver flexible learning both to internal and external clients.
    http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go/pid/377

Tools and resources

Social bookmark for this strategy

http://del.icio.us/designelearn/student_presentations

Last modified: 11/6/08