Practice & Preparing Students

• Go over the agenda with students so that they understand the process for the day.
• If needed, print an agenda to post in your distance learning room to help students keep on track during the day. 
• Have students practice their presentation. Time the presentations to make sure they are 4 minutes or less. 
• Emphasize speaking slowly, loudly and clearly. The biggest issue with this project is audio. 
  Remind students that everyone else is listening carefully to their presentation to take notes.
• Communicating the clues understandably is crucial! If students are reading clues, use note cards to minimize issues with rustling paper. 

Tips for Your Presentation

Each classroom should plan two 2-4 minunte presentations.  The presentation may include photos, graphics, video clips, etc.

The media used for your presentation will often depend on the equipment available for your video conference. Talk to your distance learning coordinator or technology coordinator to find the best options for presentations at your location.

Ideas 

• You may use printouts on a document camera that includes photographs.
• Or if there is a computer connected to your video conferencing system you may choose to design a PowerPoint presentation, Google Earth tour, or even a web page! However, remember that long PowerPoints can be boring. The students want to see each other too. Use balance and judgment in your decision.
• If you have a VCR attached you may even want to video tape the clues to share with others.
• No matter what you decide to do be sure to use a large text size so the words can be seen by other participants.
• Please avoid taped presentations. One of the curriculum goals for this project is to give students practice in oral speaking in a live connection. In addition, taped presentations are difficult to understand and hear when sent over compressed video. It also is easier for students to answer questions about their presentation if their research is fresh in their mind.

More tips for visuals for your presentation:

• Change the visual or the focus often.
• Don't leave the audience looking at the document camera or PowerPoint for too long. Show the students or presenter again. People can feel distanced if they are just looking at visuals and not people.
• Practice the presentation with the visuals.
• Have a backup plan if you are using a computer presentation (such as print copies of the presentation).
• Use horizontal or landscape paper using the 3x4 ratio for TV.
• Use blue ink on a light colored paper for easy reading.
• For computer presentations use a dark background with light colored thick./bold font (yellow text on blue background is great). (Hint: assign your students to watch the news one evening and take notes on the colors used for text and text background. Are they readable? These are generally good colors to use!)
• Use large fonts such as 24 pt or higher.
• Leave a 1.5 or more border/margin around the edge of the document.
• Be careful of colors: avoid red/hot pink and green, avoid solid blocks of white, black or red.