Piktochart

Presenting your data doesn’t have to be boring at all. Neither does it take a lot of work. There are ways to create beautiful visualisations of your data without too much of an effort. Try it. Your students will like to add some creativity to their data processing.

Getting started

• Create an account on www.piktochart.com

• Choose a template that you like. They are displayed at the top of your screen. You can choose from infographic, presentation, poster and report. Choose one from the section that says ‘free templates’ and click ‘create’.

• Edit your visual to your own preferences (you can change colours, text, etc) and insert your own scientific data

• That’s it. You can now safe your infographic as an image or pdf by clicking the download button at the top right of your screen or share it with followers on other social media.

How to integrate Piktochart into your science lesson

• Watch the documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ and let your students create an infographic on global warming. You can do this with any documentary of course. You can find some interesting documentaries on the topic of sustainability on the website of Films for Action. And a list about animal documentaries can be found here.

  Subject:
  Level: Junior & Senior

  Duration: 2,5 hours (An Inconvenient Truth)

• Let your students create and publish a beautiful visualisation of the data found in their own research.
  

  Subject:
  Level: Junior & Senior
  Duration: 30 minutes

• Use it as a tool during presentations, instead of PowerPoint or another presentation tool.
  Subject:
  Level: Junior & Senior
  Duration: 30 minutes

Piktochart: Tips & Tricks

• Give your infographic a title to make sure you’ll be able to find it back easily by going to the top middle of your screen and click on ‘Untitled infographic’. Then change the title to your own preferences.

• With piktochart you have a lot of options to insert maps, videos, pictures and change all the colours but don’t overdo it. Less is more!

• Although Piktochart is very easy to work with. We did find some tips and tricks you did not know yet. Watch this 2 minute video to find out how you can move all objects at once, mask images and other useful tricks.

Slideshare

SlideShare is a community for sharing presentations and other professional content. Did you or your students create a powerful presentation? Or are you looking for a presentation about a specific subject that is already there? SlideShare is a database with millions of users all spreading their presentations and therefore contributing to a world of knowledge. Presentations are freely available and you can browse through the different categories.

Getting started

• Firstly go to http://www.slideshare.net/ss/creators/get-startedto see a small presentation on how it works

• Then create your own account by clicking the sign up button at the top right of your screen

• To make it easier you can also link your SlideShare account to your Facebook or LinkedIn account. 

• You can start by browsing the ‘Education Section’.

• Found something you like? Click on the download button. You can skip the notification about ‘clipping’ and continue to download as a PowerPoint presentation that you can safe right to your computer or mobile device.

• Do you want to upload a presentation of your own? Click on the orange ‘upload’ button on the top right of your screen.

How to integrate Slideshare into your science lesson

Others have created great slide share presentations. Have a look and feel inspired.

• Here is a presentation on the topic of air pollution that discusses the different types, the causes and the effects. And here is one on the topic of recycling. It gives information about the purpose of recycling and also provides you with some creative recycling ideas for your everyday stuff.

  Subject:
  Level: Senior
  Duration: 1 hour

• And this one about global warming so you can teach your students about the difference between global warming and climate change. It also puts emphasis on solutions and responsibility and puts it in a broader, historical context so you can use it to fuel up a good discussion.
  Subject:
  Level: Senior
  Duration: 30 minutes

• Let your students create a presentation about a topic of choice and upload it to slideshare to see how many people you can inspire with your presentation. Make sure you make a nice and visual presentation and use a catchy title that describes the context well.

  Subject:
  Level: Junior & Senior
  Duration: 30 minutes

Tips & Tricks

• To get an idea of the quality of the presentation you are viewing you can see how many 'likes' it’s been given. Also below the presentation you can view comments of others on this presentation.

• Also to avoid presentations that are too long you can see how many slides it contains. Ideally you would stay under 50!

• On the right of your screen you can see other recommended presentations.

Blogger

A nice way to motivate and attract students to scienceis by keeping a blog. A blog is a frequently updated online personal journal or diary. It is a place to express yourself to the world. A place to share your thoughts and your passions. You can say that a blog is your own website that you are going to update on an ongoing basis. Blog is a short for the word weblog. Blogger is a great blogging platform which is also very easy to work with.

Getting started

• Create an account on Blogger.

• What makes it easier is that also Blogger is a service of Google and you can therefore use your own gmail address. Or create a special teachers account if youhaven’t already.

• Register yourself by clicking ‘new blog’ and choose a template and a blogname that you like.The blogname will appear for example like this: MASS2016.blogspot.com

• After creating a blog you will be lead to your overview page. From here you can start creating a blog by clicking on ‘new message’. You can type in your text and if you like you can add videos and photos too.

How to integrate Blogger into your science lesson

It might be still a bit challenging to get you started. Don’t be afraid to ask one of your saffy students for help or watch this video

• There are some science teachers around who have some interesting blogs. Let your students visit these blogs and comment on it to fuel up the discussion. Here are some interesting blogs that are worh a visit:
  www.teachercertificationdegrees.com/top-blogs/science-teacher
  www.popsci.com/blog-network
  Subject:
  Level: Junior & Senior
  Duration: 15 minutes
• Pass the ‘pen’ to your students and let them write a blog about a topic of choice (you could help with the selection). So every week for example another student can write a blog and others have to comment on it.
  Subject:
  Level: Junior & Senior
  Duration: 30 minutes

Tips & Tricks

• Keep in mind a few things when writing a blog or assigning your students to do so. Set a maximum amount of characters so you make sure blogs aren’t too lengthy thus boring to read. Also let your students separate their blog in maximum 4 different parts so it’s easier to read. Let them start with a hypothysis and finish with a conclusion or recommendations. This way you can combine the scientific content level with some writing skills.

• Publish the best blogs on your Twitter or Facebook account and see how many likes and shares they can get.