HOW TO TEACH THE BIG PICTURE odular m g n i s U ation presentent to pres x ideas comple Some concepts are difficult to understand, and presenting them to a classroom full of students can be more difficult. Tools like Microsoft PowerPoint or Apple Keynote let instructors design information for classroom instruction, but don’t offer the flexibility of a marker board for drawing “big picture” ideas. ENTER: PREZI! The modular style presentation software allows instructors to present a big idea and focus on its parts. It’s like seeing the macro view of an insect, and then zooming in to see its cells. Where does this fit in a mass comm classroom? In mass communications, we routinely encounter complex ideas to explain verbally, or to present to students. Think about newsworthiness, semiotics, or photo composition. These are all “big picture” ideas that could easily be presented using a modular style. So how do you do it? First, check out Prezi (http://www.prezi.com). The web-based presentation software is free to educators and allows them to create what is essentially an interactive poster. But instead of being a 2-D surface, Prezi allows its users to zoom, pan, twist, and flip the text and images on its pasteboard. So what might look like the dot on an “i” might actually be a map of the world. Prezi offers a quick tutorial that will explain the basics of using the program. Use a royalty-free image site like Stock-Xchng (http://sxc.hu) or Flickr Creative Commons to illustrate your Prezi. Matthew J. Haught M . A . J. I D O C TO R A L S T U D E N T What’s the learning outcome for this presentation? This is the first question you must ask yourself when preparing a visual lecture. This question should guide every example you include in the presentation and should be considered multiple times in creating each section of a presentation. (Today I want my students to understand newsworthiness. There are four main parts of newsworthiness that I want them to understand...etc.). How do big-picture lessons work in the classroom? When trying to get students to understand a vague idea or broad concept, it is important that they consume the information at a size they can process. That’s where modular presentation really shines. Students are able to guide the lecture by asking questions. The instructor can anticipate areas in which students will struggle, or concepts that will require depth of explanation, and can create modules for each idea. Instead of skipping over dozens of slides to answer the question, the module is just a click away on the map. The back side of this handout is a step-by-step worksheet for planning your presentation. C O N TA C T M E [email protected] 2011 AEJMC Teaching Marathon: Magazine and Visual Communication TO THINK BIG, YOU HAVE TO PLAN BIG This worksheet will help you plan a big-picture presentation for your classroom. Answer these questions before you even start to design your presentation, and you will be prepared to create a memorable lesson. 1. What is the key idea you want students to learn? 2. What are the main elements of this lesson? 3. What images, maps, or charts convey the main elements? 4. What do I need to say to make these modules make sense? This should be something large, like newsworthiness, semiotics, photo composition, logo development, media buying, or campaign-wide advertising planning. If you were doing an outline of your lecture, this would be the capital letters. For the example of “What determines newsworthiness,” Timeliness, Proximity, Money, and Conflict were selected as the main ideas for students to understand. These concepts should become the main modules in your presentation. Keep this limited to no more than five elements. This is where you start to think visually. For each main element of the lesson, list a few images, maps, charts, graphics, pulled quotes, or even videos explain the point you want your students to understand. Now that your modules visually convey your message, you need to plan your verbal counterpart. The presentation should not speak for itself, and you need to be able to related the images on the screen to the big idea you named in Question 1.