Deb Norton Tech

Presentations help to tell a story or give information There are many choices for making presentations, but one of my favorites is Adobe Slate.  There is an iPad app as well as a web version.  Here are some of the features that make Adobe Slate a favorite of mine: Scroll through the presentation and check out the awesome effects and features. Easily add text, window images, captions, links, picture galleries and a cover photo. Edit or add more content as you go. Easily move any content around to readjust. Publish and share your presentation with a link or embed code. Click the image below to view my Adobe Slate presentation.

Thematic is a really neat way to create a very simple presentation with photos and text. Click here to see my presentation. Just scroll down when you get there. It just doesn't get any easier. I started by signing up for an account. I then clicked on Create a Story From there I was able to choose whether I wanted to bring in pictures from my Dropbox account or from my computer. I used a folder from my Dropbox of a school in Middleton, Wisconsin that I had saved pictures of their 21st century design. Once the pictures were uploaded, which was super fast, I added text to each of the pictures. I was able to choose the color of the text, but it was limited to white or grey scale. When I had finished the story, I had the option to make it public or private. Sharing is simple. Email, social networks, embed or just copy the link. I created my story in just a few minutes. The story is saved in my profile. There are ma...

This week I presented a session on Gamification to a group of educators in our district. This is a very popular topic in education right now and one that I am passionate about. Here is my presentation: What is important to remember, that is not written down anywhere in my presentation, but is something I talk about when presenting on Gamification, is that while we can engage students by adding gaming aspects to our lessons and through game-based activities to help teach the content, the true focus should always be on the love of learning and the intrinsic rewards that come with it. Never should the focus be solely on extrinsic rewards and motivation, although they can play a part, this is not what we want to rely on. The ultimate goal is engagement, not materialistic rewards.  There are a lot of great resources and sites in the presentation for Gamification and Game-based learning. I hope you consider incorporating some gaming elements into ...