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13 Oct 2017
Comments: 3

How do You Teach Presentation Skills?

As I mentioned in my previous post, one of my jobs as an Educational Technologist at a secondary 1:1 iPad campus is to provide professional development… to students. One of the most popular requests I get is for slide design and presentation skills. This tends to be also be the topic I have done the most research on AND delivered the most times. I have delivered variations of this presentation (see below) to Capstone, Mentorship, Comp Sci, Incubator, ELA, and SS classes alike.

The Secrets of Slide Design

The presentation I am referring to is linked here and embedded below:

Supporting the Secrets of Slide Design and Presentation Skills

I have also presented this topic at a variety of conferences to adult learners. What I have not done (and realized this only recently) is drafted a proper blog post with all of these resources. Honestly, what happened was… I started penning my first book, “Cultivating Communication in the Classroom: Future-Ready Skills for Secondary Students” and had to take some time off from blogging. The entire 3rd chapter is basically a more elaborate and detailed version of this slide deck… citing additional examples, rationales, and suggestions for classroom integration. But… this blog post is not a sales pitch and if you know me at all… you know that I spend hours creating and curating content for teachers to be shared freely. So whether you invest in the book or not, I wanted to share with you some additional resources to support visual literacy and presentation skills. All of these resources (and more) are linked off the companion site for the book:

 

  • Secrets of Slide Design for Students and Beyond: This is a quick infographic that basically takes the slide deck above and summarizes major points.
  • Slide Design Hacks for Secondary Students: This is an infographic that details some of the tools and sites I use to jazz up my slides.
  • Student Presentation Note-Taking Guide: I found when delivering this content to students, it appeared like it was the first time they had ever heard it. To scaffold the intake and processing of this info, I decided to create a Note-Taking Guide (pictured below and linked here).
  • Student Presentation Planning Guide: I also found it helpful to create a planning guide for students so they could refer back to sites and resources and quick tips (pictured below and linked here).
  • Student Presentation Planner (Communication Catcher): As a way to start conversations about designing and planning a presentation… I created a communication catcher. Think of these as instructional cootie catchers or fortune tellers (pictured below and linked here).

Feel free to download the PDF version of all of these and use them with you students and staff.

 

 

I thought… up until a few weeks ago, that this was a complete resource… but then I was sitting in a professional development that was designed to get collaborative (e.g. inclusion) and classroom teachers collaborating more effectively, and I had this idea. The presenters started talking about setting norms when these teachers work together and that got me to thinking about setting norms for when you have to craft and present a slide deck together… and thus… “Norms for Collaborating on Presentations” was born. Since I was in a professional development and because I have reverted to taking more of my notes in analog form, the info below is handwritten. It is more just some things to think about (for students and adults) when you present with another human being. The users of this info would answer the questions and then choose “need” or “don’t need” for each statement.
 

 

Now I think you are pretty caught up on visual literacy and presentation skills… Please feel free to email me with questions about the resources. I also love getting emails or tweets @TechChef4u about how you are using them.

If you are delivering similar professional development to students or find there are specific needs students have, I would love to hear about them. Please share links in the comments!

 

As I stated in the Note-taking post earlier this week, I am pausing my #ScrapNotes series to share some initiatives I have been working on:

Stay tuned for more…

WHERE WILL TECHCHEF BE NEXT?

If you are interested in booking Lisa Johnson and/or would like to know more about her speaking history or professional development portfolio… visit the TechChef4u speaking page for more info or email techchef4u@gmail.com.

And… Check out her latest creation… the book “Cultivating Communication in the Classroom: Future-Ready Skills for Secondary Students.”


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08 Sep 2017
Comments: 1

#ScrapNotes: The Savvy Supply List

 

In part 3, “PD Note-taking”, I set the stage for how how to make analog notes interactive. And now the time has come to embrace… pens and stickers. If this is just not for you, seriously, no worries at all. I won’t be offended. Skip on to Part 5 “The Complete Guide to People, Ideas, and Inspiration.” But for those of you… and I know there are a few… that geek out over pens, items that are ROYGBIV’d, and clandestine visits to Michael’s and the washi tape section of Office Depot… then this post is for you… and please know that you are not alone. Art Journaling, Visual Note-taking, and Bullet Journaling is a very real thing and I have seen the pastime embraced by students of all ages (HS, College, Grad) and adults alike.

THE SUPPLY LIST

With that being said. I am going to break this post into 3 parts:

  • Note-Taking Essentials: 
    • NOTEBOOK: I prefer a notebook that has a hard cover, an elastic band, and plain pages. The Leuchtturm1917 is turning out to be my favorite so far.
    • PENS: I also love using Sharpie fine point pens. They are awesome and permanent and don’t bleed.
  • Note-Taking Nice to Haves:
    • LABELS: These cost like $1 or $2 at Michael’s but are perfect for accentuating quotes or making lists. As the notebooks I like have thinner pages, these are great to maximize the real estate of both sides of the page too.
    • DOUBLE SIDED TAPE: I love this for adding in items. I like to include library cards for lists, greeting cards for lexicon libraries, and postcards and such.
    • RULER: I can’t draw a straight line to save my life so this is a necessity to have!
  • Note-Taking Icing on the Cake (“Getting Fancy”):
    • STICKERS: I have loved stickers forever and these 3 brands are awesome. I am seriously in love with the 7 Gypsies Architexture series… it is the best!!! The Dylusions set is great because many of the stickers are black and white so you can color them to match your page.
    • WASHI TAPE: I think everyone geeks out over this stuff. Basically pretty masking tapes. And my favorite ones come from Jane Davenport.
    • GREETING CARDS: I use greeting cards in my notebooks to expand the real estate of the page. I typically use them to compose a lexicon library for the book I am reading or to make lists and thoughts that I would like to keep “more private.”
    • PAPERS: I love finding antique papers. They look great in a notebook and these library cards are perfect to make lists.

THE INTERACTIVE SUPPLY LIST and SHOWCASE

This post has actually been on hold for a bit because I have been trying to determine the best way to not only share the tools and why/how I use them but actual examples too. Finally, I had time to not only create an infographic in Keynote but also Thinglink it with all of these resources and examples (linked here and embedded below):
 

STAY TUNED…

I have also started delivering workshops on this topic of #ScrapNotes and “Notable Note-taking” or “Into the Notebook”. While I haven’t had a moment to share the slide deck or resources, I do have some of the support sites live… check out NoteChef4u instagram for 160+ #scrapnotes examples and Pinterest for 230+ examples and resources to create the “Organized Brain” or at the very least… an organized notebook. I should also mention that all 37 of my interactive notes are posted here.

Erin Barnes at my "Into the Notebook" session at iPadpalooza OU

Erin Barnes at my “Into the Notebook” session at iPadpalooza OU

 

#scrapnotes… the NEXT CHAPTER…

Stay tuned for the next blog posts in the series (or catch up on previous ones):

 

WHERE WILL TECHCHEF BE NEXT?

If you are interested in booking Lisa Johnson and/or would like to know more about her speaking history or professional development portfolio… visit the TechChef4u speaking page for more info or email techchef4u@gmail.com.

And… Check out her latest creation… the book “Cultivating Communication in the Classroom: Future-Ready Skills for Secondary Students.”


06 Sep 2017
Comments: 1

iPadpalooza OU Recap

I am going to take a semi-pause on my ScrapNotes series (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 are linked here) to share with you the awesome learning I encountered at iPadpalooza OU. This is the only iPadpalooza that I know of that is held on a college campus and that also caters to preservice teachers and K-12 teachers alike. In fact, Day 1 was all preservice teachers and Day 2 was a smattering of preservice teachers and an awesome K-12 inservice bunch. When I attend events like this, my intent is to learn and return back with new knowledge and tools so I am going to cut directly to the chase and highlight a few of my favorite sessions and tools!

SaveSaveGetting’ Bitmoji Wit It: Lara Searcy and Josh Flores

I will be honest I haven’t climbed full force on to the Bitmoji Bandwagon but this session did inch me closer. What I loved about this session is that both of the presenters were dynamic and they really knew their content. You absolutely have to check out their hyperdoc’d agenda and the way they use Bitmoji in rubrics (which is embedded within their slide deck). All of the resources for the session are linked here or embedded within the graphic below.

Walk this Way to Master an Easy Drag and Drop Website Creator: Monica Burns

Even though I have had experience with Adobe Spark Pages, I still learned new things from this session. My favorite gem was the 4 Spark Video graphic organizers that Monica offers on her site. And dude… I had no idea she had just published her fourth book. Wow! All of the session resources are linked here and embedded within the graphic below.

Born to Draw: Reshan Richards

I have been a long time Reshan Richards fan for years. If you remember, Yolanda and I had him on our now archived podcast series, “Appy Hours 4 U” back in 2012.  But I digress… so Reshan delivered a masterful session on the simplicity of drawing. I love how he scaffolded it through 3 activities. All of the activities and descriptions are linked here and embedded below in the interactive graphic.

How Do You Explain Your Job to Other People: Josh Flores

As if the first time with Josh Flores wasn’t amazing enough, he returned again with a most epic keynote. Honestly, this would rank up there with some of my all time favorites Adam Bellow, George Couros, and Dean Shareski. He started by asking all of us how we explain our jobs to others. And then referenced how the world sees us with a simple google search for the word “teacher” which brings up chalk and chalk boards. He likened us more to superhero profiles in a video game and showcased our stats. He even took a jaunt down Hollywood Boulevard to highlight what characteristics Hollywood deems positive and negative in teaching. I have to say the exercise of, “Badly Explain(ing) Your Profession” was the most entertaining for me by far. My interactive notes are linked here and embedded below. I left happy and energized and that is the mark of a most excellent keynote.

 

Into the Notebook session at iPadpalooza OU

TechChef’s Concoctions

I also delivered two sessions both days. All of the session resources are in Participate.

I guess if you have read this post then you will also have noticed that their was a rock band sort of theme to all of the sessions and all of mine were named after Blue October songs. 😉

I should also mention that if you are interested in seeing more examples of these interactive notes that I take… I have 35+ of them pinned here. If you are intrigued with the process, I have a blog post on that here.

And one more thing. You might have noticed that I included a UT Longhorn baseball cap in my blog header image… that was simply to balance out all of the crimson OU and broken and upside down longhorns I saw when I stayed at the Sooner Legends hotel. 😉
 

WHERE WILL TECHCHEF BE NEXT?

If you are interested in booking Lisa Johnson and/or would like to know more about her speaking history or professional development portfolio… visit the TechChef4u speaking page for more info or email techchef4u@gmail.com.

And… Check out her latest creation… the book “Cultivating Communication in the Classroom: Future-Ready Skills for Secondary Students.”


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09 Aug 2017
Comments: 1

#ScrapNotes: The Complete Guide to PD Note-Taking

“Um… TechChef… we don’t mean to bug you or anything. We totally appreciate this #scrapnotes kick you are on… but you used to write about technology and stuff… and we were just wondering…” It is totally fine… I know you were all thinking this. I do typically share about technology iOS and web applications and processes. I have decided to broaden that definition, as of lately, to define technology as any tool that students have in their hands… and paper and pen… is still a reality… even in schools with 1:1 iPad, Chromebooks, or carts of iPads. But, I also don’t want to swim so far from the shore that it is too difficult to connect the dots back… so this post is somewhat of a hybrid. To date, I have whet your palette for #Scrapnotes with posts 1 and 2… and now I want to share my process for PD Note-taking which expands the horizon for what is possible with pen, paper, and a device.

My Note-Taking Evolution

Many times there is a multi-pronged goal to notes that we take in professional development. Clearly we want to return to them and utilize them in the future. But many times we also want to share them with staff that didn’t get to attend that session or that conference. Previously to finding myself in an extraordinary note-taking situation, I found myself exploring a variety of options:

  • Conference Collage: At first, I created a collage of images from the conference and then thinglinked it with my notes taken in Evernote or links to particular session resources. (Example: Miami Device 2014).
  • Interactive Maps: Then PhotoMapo caught my attention and I began using it as a point of reference. From there I would add pertinent links on top of the maps. (Example: ETT Austin and Summer of 2014).
  • Crafting in Canva: Finally in 2015, I experimented with creating my own image in Canva and using it as the landscape for Thinglink. This afforded me more customization (and the images were beautiful) but honestly it was far more time-consuming. (Example: TCEA 2015 and SXSWEDU 2015).

So at the end of 2015… I started dabbling with this analog note-taking as I mentioned in blog posts 1 and 2 (linked above). At first, my notes for conferences were still very text heavy. But I noticed very quickly a few benefits. I was more focused on what the speaker was saying as I didn’t have notifications popping up in my “notebook” or a plethora of tantalizing tabs open… including my email. I also was only jotting down what I felt relevant rather than trying to gather everything the speaker said in Evernote. Pretty soon I found myself drawing mind-maps and even icons. And sure enough… I found that this style of note-taking was not only better for me as a conference or workshop participant but provided far more insight and information to the people I then shared my notes with.

But these notes were still flat and to make the learning adventure accessible to everyone… I had to go beyond the page. The beauty of this was simple… I could take a picture of the notes (with practically any device… as Thinglink is device neutral) and then add additional thoughts, links, resources on a dimension above the page… so to speak. I received multiple thanks from a number of staff on this process and I found that having the notes in two places made it easier for me to easily retrieve them whenever I needed to refer to them or share them.

My Process

Now I know you might be wondering which way you ought to go from here? 😉 Once you have the notebook you decide to use for your PD Note-taking, I did want to break down my process a bit:

  1. Tabs: I bought Post-it tabs for my notebook (more on supplies in post 4) that I use to separate the notebook for each conference I attend. My intent is to print out labels with titles on them as well… just haven’t had a chance. All of my notes are chronological so this allows me to easily find the notes from the conference or session.
  2. Dates and Titles: In the upper right hand corner, I always include the title of the conference and the date. In the upper left hand corner, I include the name of the session and the speakers and their Twitter handles and emails (if applicable). These get Thinglinked later.
  3. Session Notes: From there, I take notes. I draw icons, build mind-maps and really only write down things that speak to me. Drawing the icons is especially helpful to organize the content. I typically have my phone next to me and I search for an icon and then sketch it while I am listening to the speaker.
  4. More: I oftentimes will go over the notes after the session and add bullets or A, B, C … just to make them a little easier to follow. I will also use the right hand “Action Steps” column in my Behance Action Journal to jot down tools I should look at, next steps, great ideas, etc…

Once the notes are complete, then I snap a pic and Thinglink them with additional info. Below is an example of the interactive Thinglinked notes from the header in this blog post:

I won’t leave you with the lip service… “practice makes perfect” or even “practice makes better”… what I will tell you that with practice… you find your own style and I quite agree that is the best kind of ending… or beginning! 😉

Please don’t forget to check out NoteChef4u instagram for 80+ #scrapnotes examples and Pinterest for 180+ examples and resources to create the “Organized Brain” or at the very least… an organized notebook. I should also mention that all 31 of my interactive notes are posted here.

#scrapnotes… the NEXT CHAPTER…

Stay tuned for the next blog posts in the series (or catch up on previous ones):

 

WHERE WILL TECHCHEF BE NEXT?

If you are interested in booking Lisa Johnson and/or would like to know more about her speaking history or professional development portfolio… visit the TechChef4u speaking page for more info or email techchef4u@gmail.com.

And… Check out her latest creation… the book “Cultivating Communication in the Classroom: Future-Ready Skills for Secondary Students.”


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03 Aug 2017
Comments: 1

#ScrapNotes: The Complete Guide to Book Summaries

With my last blog post “#ScrapNotes: How to Begin Your Journey Down the Rabbit Hole”, I hoped to pique your interest and provide information. With this post, it is my intent to share my process. You may have had a sip of the #scrapnotes potion and now your ideas are so big that you can’t seem to fit them through the door… or into your notebook. I may be a bit mad… but the process that I share should help you keep the journal jabberwocky at bay or at the very least… tame him or her. 😉

But before I do that, I would like to share a disclaimer. Please know that I am not one for fads. I am, however, one that shares ideas, tools, and processes that work for me… in hopes that they may fill a need for you too. I also think that the pendulum between analog and digital is always swinging. I went all digital with notes several years ago and for some things… it totally makes sense. But for others… it doesn’t. I began navigating this analog terrain again at the end of 2015. Since then, I have filled up 4 notebooks and started 3 more and I have to say I haven’t felt this organized and happy in years.

MY HOW

With that being said… I would like to snap (wait for the pun… or the Snapguide… in the case) my fingers and share with you my process. For this I felt like returning to the tried and true tool, Snapguide. There are many different things you can do with a notebook and we will cover a multitude of them in the next few blog posts. For this post… I wanted to narrow in solely on the process of reading or book summaries. I enjoy reading (both personally and professionally) and I am one of those people that loves to highlight in my book. What I was discovering is that I had a bookshelf of books with highlights and post-its but no easy way to commit that info to memory or practice… or to easy access…. until now. So here is my process:

  1. Read and Highlight: Read a book and highlight as I read.
  2. Tuck Away: Set book down for a few weeks. I find that by putting the book down for a bit, I tend to make better decisions about what highlights were really important a few weeks later and only transcribe and #scrapnote those.
  3. Title Page: Create a page that includes the title of the book and the author and the date I am transcribing the notes. I like to mimic the font and color of the book just for fun.
  4. Review Notes: Review the book’s highlights and begin adding info to your notes.
  5. Create a Color Hierarchy: Use only 2-3 colored pens. I try to match the color of the book or the theme. I tend to use one color for headers and one color for subheaders so it provides a nice visual hierarchy.
  6. Visualize with Icons: Icons tend to encompass a multitude of ideas and are easily recognizable. While I can’t conjure and draw these visuals from memory, I am able to look at icon sites and recreate similar visuals.
  7. Embellish Away: Embellish notes with washi tape, stickers, labels, and mementos. Washi tape and labels also serve as a great way to create sections on a page or a visual hierarchy and/or divide.

I think it helps to see visuals for each so I crafted a Snapguide (linked here) to do the trick.

Check out How to Create #ScrapNotes Book Summaries by Lisa Johnson on Snapguide.

MY PROCESS

I would like to get a wee bit more granular with this as multiple people have asked me about the organization of this process. While I am transcribing notes, I typically keep a page for:

  1. Research: I am always collecting research and I don’t always want to return to the book to recall a percentage or study. This page is typically a bulleted list. If the book is super research-heavy, then I include 2-3 pages devoted just to this.
  2. Lexicon Library: I am an author and I have always loved words and phrases. Anything that strikes my fancy gets added here. As this is not the main point of the book, sometimes I will paste a card to a page so I can add this info in there so it doesn’t detract from the rest of the content I am summarizing.
  3. Quotes and Insight: I have always had a hankering for quotes. Anything I find especially pertinent gets added here. I do try to use shorthand and abbreviations as much as possible. I also include page numbers. This is also where I start adding icons, illustrations, and visual equations.

The best advice I can give you… is just start. My process has evolved and been fine tuned over the past two years. If I had waited for it to be perfect, I would never have discovered which way to go. After all… sometimes when you wonder… you find your path.

#scrapnotes are BORN!

If I am using my Moleskine or Luechtturm1917 (which I do for my book summaries), then the pages tend to be a little thinner. This is when I take notecards, postcards, scraps of art, or really anything that adds to the content (both in idea or visually). I add these items in with permanent double-sided tape. Then, I get fanciful with my embellishments and add washi tape and stickers. The items also provide a nice visual hierarchy. Honestly, you could totally leave the fanciful embellishments out, but I have to tell you… this is one of my favorite parts and what makes me so happy each time I open a page to review my notes. Another thing I have noticed is that these visuals tend to heighten my memory for the book and the process. I can often remember where I was when I took the notes and what I was doing at the time.

Please don’t forget to check out NoteChef4u instagram for 80+ #scrapnotes examples and Pinterest for 180+ examples and resources to create the “Organized Brain” or at the very least… an organized notebook.

#scrapnotes… the NEXT CHAPTER…

Stay tuned for the next blog posts in the series (or catch up on previous ones):

 

WHERE WILL TECHCHEF BE NEXT?

If you are interested in booking Lisa Johnson and/or would like to know more about her speaking history or professional development portfolio… visit the TechChef4u speaking page for more info or email techchef4u@gmail.com.

And… Check out her latest creation… the book “Cultivating Communication in the Classroom: Future-Ready Skills for Secondary Students.”


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