Giving PowerPoint a "Face Lift" for Interactive Activities: Part Three

Building Activities with Branching Pages
We explored using PowerPoint to make a communication board in the first of this series, but I didn't go into the branching power of PowerPoint. Many people think that PowerPoint is just a slide show program that allows you to put in text for a presentation, lecture, etc.
You can actually use an image or word as a link to assign an action and then tell it what you want it to do. You can have it open another program, a site on the Internet, play a sound, do an animation or go to another slide. Going to another slide is where we get the functionality to be more interactive.

There have been ambitious projects to use PowerPoint as a Jeopardy Board with columns of boxes and points. Each box can be clicked on and a new slide which has been assigned opens and then the "answer" is read like on the game show. There is a "back" button at the bottom and then you are back to the main board.
Using this assignable action, you can create multiple choice quizzes and have each choice link to a new slide or a sound for "Sorry..." or "You got it!"
You can create a branching story and give different options for where the character goes and what happens - no right or wrong, just a different track.

To do this in MS Office 2007:
1. Create your slide with your question and answers, graphic, etc. Then create your slides with your response to the selection, i.e. a "Sorry" or "Good Job". Once you have the slides made to link to, you are set.

2. Highlight the text you want to set with an action in your question slide and then select "Insert" up at the top in your menu buttons/task bar. Within it, there will be an "Action" button. Select it and then choose the radio button "hyperlink to slide..." and use the pull-down menu.

3. Choose "Slide..." and choose the number of your slide that has the response you want.

4. Remember to put a "back" button or linked text on your incorrect response slide that links back to the question so they can try again.

Once you create a multiple choice activity, you can keep it and change the text in the boxes and the graphics and still have all your pattern. You will have to re-do the links when you change the text.

I don't have Office 2003 anymore, but I think I had to right-click on the text or image and choose action settings from there and then the rest was the same. If I am wrong, and someone reading this knows, maybe you can add a comment and correct me. I just get used to the new '07 version and when I don't use the older xp/03 version I forget.

Backgrounds and colors
As far as backgrounds and colors, I try to keep it simple. I use white backgrounds a lot and for the visually impaired, I will use a black background with large, bold yellow letters and numbers.
PowerPoint has a stock set of backgrounds and templates. I tend to stay away from animation, sound effects and busy nackgrounds. For the type of students that need support like this, it just gets distracting. There is one exception though. I did a study on color and autism/ADHD and the color can really be crucial. You need to explore what suits these students individually. Sometimes, ADD/ADHD students do better with a bright color background and vibrant letters. For autism, the wrong colors or added graphics can throw the whole activity into a huge distraction, so know the student's learning style and preferences first.I\

I know that designing activities is time consuming, but sometimes we have students that could really benefit from these types of projects. As an AT Specialist, I get asked to design something that incorporates a concept the student is working on and I am able to customize a PowerPoint to do it. I share how to do this in our teacher workshops and classes so they can grow in their ability to build activities.
There is a lot more than what I am sharing here, but it is a start. I hope that you will be encouraged to step out and experiment with this tool. Brush off the cobwebs on your PowerPoint program and take it for a spin. There are some dynamic elements to it that can bring new learning opportunities to your students.

All the best to you!
Lon

Giving PowerPoint a "Facelift" for Interactive Activities: Part Two

PowerPoint Face Lifts Part Two:
Creating Communication Boards and Switch Access Pros and Cons.

I made a video tutorial last spring that is on using PowerPoint to create a communication board. I enjoyed making it and I liked the fact that if you can't afford the $765 for a Boardmaker Speaking Dynamically Pro program, you can get started with a PowerPoint on topics. A main drawback is that since PowerPoint can't do step scanning - (where each choice on a page is highlighted one at a time and the user can select the choice they want when framed in the sequence) you are limited to a mouse or trackpad to navigate through the choices. It is possible to use a head or eye tracker device to select a choice, but if you can afford that, you probably will be using a custom software or an AAC device instead! Since lots of schools have MS Office already, a PowerPoint can be used to experiment and get something started. I have the video below so you can see a little of what I am talking about. I was experimenting with a free screen capture video program and the sound is a little odd, but it will carry you through the steps if you want to know how to do it. I used Audacity as the sound program to create my sound clips to embed in the graphics. It is a free open source software.



Since we are already addressing switches, let's talk about switch access a minute - and how it can work with a PowerPoint activity (or can't work). With a switch interface that you USB in the back of the computer, you can use any kind of switch to act as a mouse click and move to the next page, trigger a sound, animation or video - anything that can be started on a slide by clicking the mouse. What a switch interface and a switch can't do is navigate a page or slide to make a choice. Switch access is good for certain activities like a "talking book" activity where the user can use the switch to "turn the page "and trigger a narration. If a video or sound is set to open on a mouse click, then a switch would work there as well.
I make activities where a student has to choose a letter from a choice of three - for example, based on a picture and sound. The student has to be able to navigate to choose one answer. You can't use a switch and interface to do that. If you are building an activity with PowerPoint, make sure you know who your audience is going to be so you don't design something they can't access. This is where the custom softwares like SoftTouch Test Me Score Me, Clicker 5 and Classroom Suite come in because of the capability to scan. They give you the versatility to work with orthopedically impaired so they can access through the scanning feature. You also have the Intellikeys board as an input device but you still have to be able to have enough fine motor to target and hit an area on the board.
I had an email on my Part One post yesterday, sharing that they used to use topics and video and make an overlay for the Intellikeys so that they could turn pages, watch videos, play recordings, etc. by selecting the specific choice on the board. I love hearing your ideas on activities. If you have one you would like to share please comment or email me.

I am going to save the branching activities and graphics, color, background, etc. until next time so that I don't try to include too much in one post - I guess there will need to be a part three.

All the best to you!

Lon

Giving PowerPoint a "Facelift" for Interactive Activities: Part One of Two

PowerPoint Face Lifts
Part One: Using Sound and Video

We were having dinner with some friends last night and talking about up-coming dates on our calendar. I mentioned that we would be on the Oregon Coast in 2 weeks at a state-wide AT Summer Institute and I would be presenting a day workshop.
"What are you going to be teaching about?" I was asked.
"How to build interactive activities on the computer" was my response.
"You mean POWERPOINT?"
Everyone laughed.
Everyone laughed? Why? Is it that we have been conditioned to see the dreaded bulleted text zip, fade and roll on and off the screen and bore us to death?
My friend commented, "Yeah, the old dreaded PowerPoint slide show. Oh boy..."

They weren't making fun of me and they had a point. In teaching and lecturing, we have gotten used to sticking with the same old tried and true methods, when there is so much more to do. PowerPoint has become for many, a dead medium they see for dry and dull slide show presentations.
I would love to have a free or inexpensive program that allowed me to design activities where students could click and drag pictures for matching and have quick and simple text to speech. A program that had step-scanning to hear and make choices. Until that day arrives, I will have to settle for what I can do with PowerPoint. I can attach a switch interface and switches to make it easier on students with orthopedic disabilities to operate the activity but I am still bound to some limitations on choosing what I can do with it. Programs like Clicker 5, Test Me Score Me or Classroom Suite can give you more bells and whistles, but if your school has already invested in MS Office on your computer, you have a lot of power in designing interactivity with that old PowerPoint program and you can give it a new reputation and a face-lift.

How to give PowerPoint a "face-lift"
1. Use sound - a recording or a UDL Tool
In my workshops, I show folks how to take advantage of recording a narration or using a UDL tool that is free on the Internet to enhance curriculum. One such tool is "Powertalk" which takes any text that you have entered on slides in a PowerPoint and reads it automatically. This cuts out the narration recording necessity for a PowerPoint, unless you want to have a natural voice read the words. If you are creating an interactive activity, text to speech or a recorded narration gives that extra reinforcement for students with learning disabilities to be able to track with the content. With a simple microphone headset, you can record as you play a PowerPoint show for a narration track or insert a corresponding sound clip you record slide by slide.

2. Use Video
Take advantage of free videos online. Many tutorials, science experiments, etc. are there to incorporate into a PowerPoint. If you were teaching the topic of steam, you could show a science experiment video on steam, a clip of a steam engine, a steam whistle, etc. With some simple steps, a person can copy the You tube or other site video clip URL and have it downloaded to your desktop - check into Keepvid and flv Player. These tools allow you to make little flash videos of online videos for your desktop. This gets the video onto your computer as a file and then you can convert it to put in a PowerPoint afterwards.
Some examples that have videos like this:
Science-tube
You tube Science experiment with steam

3. Create Your own short video clips
It isn't too hard these days to create video. Now days, You tube has made it easy to shoot video on a cell phone with that capability and upload it to Youtube and post it almost immediately. Although the quality from a cell phone might be far from what you want, it shows that technology has cut out a lot of the steps from shooting to viewing video.
We have an older Kodak digital camera at home that has a video feature. I can take video, download it to my computer, send the file to a free online converter called media convert and have it sent back to me from a quicktime file .mov to an .avi that Windows Movie Maker (free if you have Windows) can accept. I can edit, clip and add titles if necessary and embed it into my PowerPoint pretty quickly.

What kind of video? Use SHORT clips. Don't try for "Gone with the Wind" or a clip from a talking head lecture that is dry. Add short video examples for a lesson to reinforce a color, things that start with a letter name, shapes, animals, etc. Make sure the videos are in a .wmv file to play. You can use Windows Movie Maker to convert any video format you have already converted into .avi from another format (using media convert) so that when you finish the movie in Windows Movie Maker it will end up in .wmv file format (That is the file type that is accepted and played in PowerPoint). Windows Movie Maker basically becomes an editor and converter if you need to clip out some of the video or want to add titles. If not, you could just use the raw footage and convert directly to .wmv to insert in your PowerPoint.

Summary:
No matter what your purpose is with an activity - whether it is a lesson, a talking book, etc. using narration/text to speech and video can make it come to life and be much more powerful. If you are thinking, "I don't have time to do that", remember that once you have done a couple of these and learned the basic elements, it will come easier and when you see the response you get from students, you will be hooked.

Tomorrow I will share part 2 on face lifts for PowerPoint that will include background, fonts, graphics and ideas for branching activities for interactivity and switch access. Hmmm...maybe that is too much for one more day. There might have to be a part 3 too!

All the best to you!
Lon