After presenting about podcasting in our Teaching with Technology class this past week I thought more about a question Rory had posed to our group. Did we find any examples of student work with podcasts during our research? When I thought about it further I realized that throughout the whole process of researching about podcasts, we had never really discussed showing examples of student podcasts in our presentation. We were primarily focused on how teachers could create and use these tool both in their classrooms and for professional development. Yet, it's also important to realize that our students could use these very same tools we're talking about for class assignments and larger projects. So while I hope to find more information about student podcasts examples on the web, I was interested in the next groups presentation about Capzles. You can typically find their website here if your internet is working: http://www.capzles.com/
Capzles is basically a linear showcase of pictures but you can also include PDFs and Word Documents. It's similar to Prezi is some sense, but not as potentially nauseating with twists and turns. It's called "Social Storytelling" because you can add pictures and label it with a date, then the pictures are shown in a timeline fashion. In essence, you can add music to set the stage to talk about the Renaissance in Europe through a scan of impressive pictures depicting paintings from the time. There are a host of Capzles pre-made on the website, which is great for perusal and if you don't want to spend time making one on your own. But it's so simple to make, you might as well take the few minutes to upload a bunch of pictures before class starts! Some of the few drawbacks I noticed so far was that you can't embed things like Youtube videos as seamlessly as one might hope. And we're all still confused as to how PDFs and Word Documents can successfully be uploaded and used via Capzles.
One of the things I liked most about Capzles was that there were basically no words showcased throughout the presentation. I like this better than other presentations like PowerPoint because I think a lot of people get stuck just reading the words verbatim from the slides instead of elaborating on the content. This is where I think Capzles would be great for students to create in class. Because you can't really put words on a slide, my students would have to present about a topic by preparing beforehand what they are going to say. Now I believe they could still use notes/notecards for their information, but like I said, I think it's a lot better for both the presenter and audience members to not listen to a presentation that is just listed out word-for-word on the slides. While my English content group might have made a silly Capzle related to Harry Potter (what up Potter Puppet Pals?!) I think Catherine brought up a great idea that Capzles could be used to showcase the plot arch of a story we could be reading in class. Each slide could represent a depiction from that part of the novel. I wonder if students could upload pictures of their drawings if there were no pictures available online?
Ultimately, I find that these presentations are also interesting to look at from the students perspective. How can they create something from these tools? If we're responsible for their technological literacy, shouldn't we be informing them about these awesome tools they can use too? I'll be looking forward to the remaining presentations to see how my students can implement these in the classroom.
Kelsey,
ReplyDeleteAs one of the Capzles presenters, I appreciate your feedback and ideas for how to use Capzles. While we did encounter some technical difficulties, I am glad you were able to see the value in using this tool. One thing I really liked was the idea of having students use Capzles as a presentation tool without all of the text, as in Powerpoint or Prezi. I remember in high school it was always difficult to think about what to put on the slide, as my teachers would remind everyone not to read directly from it. This is an important skill for students to have as they enter the job market and are required to make professional presentations. I also really liked that you mentioned putting this tool into the hands of students. I think we are all thinking about ways that we, as teachers, can use these tools but ultimately we want to transfer skills to students to increase their technological literacy. I look forward to hearing the remaining presentations and think about ways I can involve my students.