Archive and Showcase Learning Experiences in a Keynote Portfolio

As most of you know by now, Keynote is my favorite tool for so many creative reasons. Let me share with you another reason I love Keynote. I love to create non-linear presentations. Non-linear simply means that the Keynote slides will not advance in sequential order. In these types of Keynote decks, you insert links that guide the order of the Keynote presentation. In this project example, if students begin the year by creating the ‘shell’ for their ongoing portfolio of work, then they simply add to it throughout the year. They can create buttons that allow the presentation to go in the order of their choosing and add links to various content areas or learning topics.

Think of the story of learning this type of project tells! It’s powerful evidence of learning and success!

Why not just use a portfolio based app that archives student work, you ask? My answer is because creating it like this is just another way students can become creators of their own work. This is especially great for even our youngest students in learning the basics of web design as they can ‘pretend’ this is their very own website. A website functions similarly; there are buttons that take the user to other pages. Students choose their design from scratch, add linking buttons that will create the action they want. There are no privacy concerns because the only people who would see this are people that have access to the Keynote file.  They can showcase their completed Keynote portfolio to a classmate, or family member with great pride knowing that this is all their own original creation. This would be an amazing artifact to show parents at the end of the year!

To make it more meaningful, when students add work to their Keynote portfolio, they explain what the project was, if they enjoyed it, and what they learned from it. It’s a very powerful reflection tool.

Students can embed video, projects from other applications, screen shots, and so much more to truly bring their digital portfolio to life. Students can use shapes as buttons and add links to various pages in their portfolio as well as add links to external sites. My suggestion is to help students build a shell for their work. Suggestions include:

• Title slide with buttons, which includes links to the various content areas.
• Create a slide with the title of each content areas.
• Add as many slides as you need under each content area.
• Add buttons to your slides with links that allow the user to go back to other pages.

Title slide with buttons to link to these content areas

Content areas (Think of this as chapters). Each of these have a link that goes back to the home page (title page).

 

 

 

 

 

 

What each content area on the title page looks like once each of the rectangle shapes have been linked to slides or external slides. The blue arrows indicate there is a link, but the arrows disappear once the user hits play and interacts with the presentation.

 

Putting it all together (Video):

QR Code People

At the beginning of the year, I like to have the students participate in technology integration projects where students get a chance to describe themselves to their classmates. This project allowed students to use written expression to describe themselves, create a QR code with text, and create a self-portrait. I did this project on the Mac, you can most certainly do this project on the iPad as well.

This project has three parts:

Part 1:

Have students create a QR code with 5 descriptive sentences. I have students use my favorite QR code generator, goqr.me. I like this site because it’s easy to create a QR code with text as well as a QR code that points to a URL. Simply click what type of QR code you want to create, type in the text, and download the QR code to your computer or save it to your camera roll (iOS).

Part 2:

The QR code will become some part of the “body” of the self-portrait the kids create. I suggested that they could use it as the head or body. I used Kid Pix for this project, but you could use any drawing app on the iPad that will allow the user to import the QR Code into the picture. NOTE: Do not get any ink or color on the QR code or it will not scan. I had students save their work as an image and put it on their desktops for the next step.

Part 3:

The last part of the project is always the most fun for students. Now is where they can scan one another’s QR Codes. Using a QR code reader of your choice, have students use their iPad to scan each other’s “QR Code Person” and read about that person as they determine who is in the self-portrait. Hopefully, this fun project using technology will allow students another way to get to know their classmates while incorporating written expression, typing skills, desktop drawing skills, and using QR codes as a way to get a quick response.

Here are a few examples: