It’s a hands-on world but our students are mostly producing presentational, hands-off projects. Teachers and students alike need to interact to impact their audiences.
Constructing interactive projects takes project based learning to a new level. When students in my dissertation study created interactive eModules, the average increase in post-test scores was 547%. Twenty percent of students who scored 20% or less on the pre-test scored 80% or more on the post-test over the course of two weeks.
I’m not suggesting that you’ll get the same gap-closing results just by adding interactivity to student projects, but it certainly justifies giving it a try. Here are ten ideas for turning one-way presentations into two-way interactive projects.
- Contact Sheet vs. Interactive Picture Collage
There is a Contact Sheet feature in Photoshop that will line up a batch of photos in neat rows and makes it easy to work off of printed sheets of photos. Galleries of pictures become even more engaging with a Google app called Loupe Collage that will place photos in collages of different shapes that can be saved as an image. Hovering the cursor over images in the collage will enlarge the individual image. When an image is clicked, it opens in a separate window that can be printed. You can share the collaged image or a link to the live collage. - Map vs. Interactive Map
Most of us would be lost without Google maps. But using Geobatch to add records that contain location data, maps become interactive. Just hover over the pins on the map to view the data in geographic context. - Picture vs. Interactive Diagrams
It’s true that pictures provide a lot more information than narratives in much less time. Interactive diagrams provide information about portions of your pictures when you hover over them. Simply use the picture as a background of an Excel spreadsheet, format the cells into a tight grid, merge groups of cells, and insert a comment that will appear when the cursor is over the merged cell. - Infographic Poster vs. Interactive Infographics
ly or Piktochart make it easy to combine data with eye-catching graphics. ThingLink will allow you to hyperlink your objects and text in your infographic to other online resources. Just got a tip from Naomi at Dell about ThingLink 3D VR. Talk about engaging your viewer! - Slide Show vs. Kiosk Model
Slide shows that are designed for presentations to large audiences can be informative, but they’re pretty impersonal. Slide shows that are designed for individuals become self-paced, intimate communication tools especially if they include lots of hyperlinks to related resources or allow for website-like branching stories. - Report vs. Docent Doc
Student reports can be pretty dull for both the writers and readers. Imagine how much more engaging and informative the report would be to create and experience if sound files were embedded or linked to the document. - Questionnaire vs. Form/Survey
People wonder if their feedback or choices will matter when they fill out paper questionnaires or ballots. When questionnaires are digital, it’s possible for participants to become more engaged. Their data points become part of trends when the results are shared immediately, and there is no fear of hanging chads or lost ballots. - Video vs. YouTube
Creating a video represents a huge investment of time. Home videos of vacations were the butt of many jokes because they went on forever and were only interesting to the people who went on the vacation. Inviting audience feedback makes videos somewhat interactive. If your audience is large, share a link to an electronic feedback form or survey. If there will be multiple viewings by smaller groups, consider posting the video on YouTube or other video sharing sites where there are built in comment sections below each posting. - Charts vs. Interactive Charts
Charts are great for displaying data in a digestible manner. Embedding static charts and graphs is not new. Have you noticed that the new Google Forms display results as live charts that display additional information that is hovered over or clicked? Sharing charts digitally brings data to life so it becomes interactive instead of presentational. - Websites vs. Blogs
Websites provide information from the presenter’s perspective. Bring multiple perspectives to your website by choosing a blog format. Your website will be richer for it.
How will you inter*act for impact?