Vance Stevens presents and discusses a course on presentation skills which he designed. Working with EFL college students who each have laptop computers, he engaged them in communicative and constructivist task-based activities in working with Web 2.0 software tools he introduced to the students: Prezi, Jing, Blogger, and SurveyMonkey. This talk presents results of a poll of the students on their attitudes toward using Prezi in place of PowerPoint, and presents evidence from their blogs and from their choice of SurveyMonkey as a tool for creating their own questionnaires, of their enthusiasm for learning and using these tools for academic communications.

1. ENGAGING
STUDENTS WITH
TECHNOLOGY IN
WEB 2.0 ENGLISH
CLASSES
Vance Stevens
A Virtual Presentation from
HCT/CERT Abu Dhabi
Slides: to the ELTAI Conference,
http://slideshare.net/vances India, July 19, 2012
Writeup:
http://vancestevens.posterous.com/a-small-research-project-on-student-attitude

2. WHAT IS THIS ABOUT?
 First-year male college students
 One-to-one laptop setting
 Enrolled in “Academic Communication” (presentation) course
 Tasked to research and produce academic presentations
 Facilitated through the following Web 2.0 tools
1. Prezi http://prezi.com to mount online presentations
2. SurveyMonkey http://surveymonkey.com to gather data in online
surveys
3. Google Docs http://docs.google.com to negotiate content and
language interactively
4. Jing http://jingproject.com to capture charts from SurveyMonkey
5. Slideshare http://slideshare.net where students display their PPT slide
shows online
6. Blog http://blogger.com to reflect on what students had learned
7. Wiki http://acommunication.pbworks.com to serve as a portal to
display student work

3. TASK-BASED PROJECT
COMPONENTS
1. Textbook Present yourself2: Viewpoints by Steven Gershon
2. Students created Prezis on mottos/slogans for the environment
1. Link to student Prezis at wiki portal http://acommunication.pbworks.com
http://acommunication.pbworks.com/w/page/52696874/earthday22april#SeewhatyourfellowstudentsaredoingforEart
hDay
2. Earth Day connection, April 22, 2012 http://www.tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej61/int.pdf
3. Teacher modeled use of SurveyMonkey to poll reactions to Prezi
http://vancestevens.posterous.com/a-small-research-project-on-student-
attitudes
4. Students created surveys using SurveyMonkey
http://acommunication.pbworks.com/w/page/55088316/Weeks16-
19#HerearesomeSTUDENTsurveysyoucantakeinSURVEYMONKEY
1. Captured charts using Jing
2. Preview them in Google Docs, say what they mean, explain them to class
3. Create PPT presentations, upload them to Slideshare, present results
formally

4. WHY PREZI?
 Piques student interest, challenges them to learn something new
 Mind-map approach similar to that adopted by Gershon:
Viewpoints
See this Prezi
http://prezi.com/dsmfwjggmhvz/prezi-why-and-how/

5. MODEL PRESENTATION CHARTS
GENERATED FROM SURVEYMONKEY

6. CHARTS IN SURVEYMONKEY
CAN BE CAPTURED USING JING

7. STUDENTS LIKED PREZI
AND THOUGHT IT WAS EASY TO
LEARN

8. THEY FAVORED
THE MIND-MAP APPROACH

9. THEY’D USE PREZI AGAIN AND THINK
WE SHOULD TEACH IT TO OTHERS

10. THEIR BLOG POSTS SHOW
APPRECIATION FOR PREZI
All student blogs:
http://acommunication.pbworks.com/w/page/53399451/week8#Seewhatblogsyourfel
This blog:
http://nc13striver.blogspot.com/2012/05/during-my-school-time-i-did-many.html

11. THANK YOU
Vance Stevens
HCT / CERT / Naval College, UAE
July 19, 2012
Slides:
http://slideshare.net/vances
Writeup:
http://vancestevens.posterous.com/a-small-research-project-on-student-attitude