Photo Credit: Bryan Ledgard
Making a meal of it: Creating a presentation
The purpose of this section is for you and/or your students to produce a presentation on the theme of food security, which will then be presented and assessed in the final part of the course.
With any controversial issue, it is vital that the sources of information and images that are used are carefully chosen. There are possibilities for bias and misinformation, and obviously any choice involves 'mediation': preparation for a particular group. Media choice is therefore important.
There are two over-riding issues to consider when developing a presentation with, for, or by students:
Audience
Who is the intended audience for the presentation that you are putting together?
What is their age range?
What existing knowledge might this audience have about the content of the presentation?
Purpose
What is the purpose of the presentation: is it to convey information, reinforce existing knowledge, entertain, summarise, be persuasive etc?
One suggested format would be to use a web-based presentation tool called Animoto.
View this example animoto video:
Visit the Animoto website to see for yourself.
A guide to creating movies with Animoto has been provided by Tony Cassidy and has been updated by Alan Parkinson to take into account recent additional features. It is worth remembering that new presentation software is made available all the time. Essentially, this is a way of telling a story, so remember to have a narrative to your presentation.
Download this presentation as a PowerPoint
There are plenty of non-ICT approaches to the presentation that could be taken, all of which teachers will be aware of. Using ICT enables the easier sharing of the finished presentations. I will focus on those which are 'my favourite price': free.
Microsoft Photo Story (also see this User Guide)
Windows Movie Maker
Prezi
There are also a number of comic-strip creation websites which might be used for this purpose, as an alternative format. One example is ToonDoo.
Once the presentations have been produced, using whatever format is thought to be appropriate, they are ready to be shown to an audience, and (if required) assessed.
In the next part of the course we will focus on assessing what has been done so far.
Photo Credit: Alexander Woollcombe / Oxfam
Reflecting on your presentation
It is now time to look forward as well as reflect on what has been done so far.
You have just been involved in selecting aspects of a controversial issue for a presentation on the issue of food security. Presentation(s) should have been produced using one of the suggested formats- these are now ready to be 'judged' which might be something that is done by the producer, or by somebody else.
Use the sheet to assess the quality of the presentation that has been produced, and consider what might have been done to adapt or improve it, if required. You will notice that the middle column is greyed out. You may wish to tell students that they cannot use this to avoid them choosing the 'middle option' each time.
We would also be more than happy to receive a copy of the finished presentation here at the Geographical Association, so that we could produce a gallery of completed presentations. This would require all images to have a full image credit which shows that they were either shared under Creative Commons or were taken by the creator of the presentation. This would also apply to any music that was used.
If you would like your presentation to be featured in this area, please contact Alan Parkinson at the GA: aparkinson@geography.org.uk.
A final development to test understanding would be to think back through the units, and explore how your views on food security might have been changed. It is also important to keep an eye on the media for additional stories - this is an area which will continue to be important for the foreseeable future.
Course Units
 Introduction |
 Getting Started |
 Supermarket Shock |
 Local Food Strategies |
 Global Food Strategies |
 The Perfect Storm? |
 Food Aid |
 Getting the Message Across |
 Making a meal of it |
 Pedagogy and Thinking |
 Plenary |
Comment on this page
Comments made by GA members appear instantly - make sure you're logged in! Guest comments will be sent to a moderator for approval.
Current conversations
What our website visitors are talking about.