IDEAS to make your PRESENTATION OF CONTENT more ENGAGING

Our students want opportunities to interact with course materials. Online students need more than a textbook reading, or a long page of boring text pasted into Sakai. They need to discover how the materials and courses relate to their lives. We already have materials we've been using and have important facts and ideas we need to share.

We can help our students by using the following ideas to organize facts and convey important concepts in a variety of formats. Each "idea" has links to instructions and has been assigned a difficulty level to help you get started or advance your skills:

What have you already got or what do you need to convey?	Ideas to make it more engaging	Difficulty Level
Does your content consist of lengthy, boring TEXT pasted in Sakai or in Word docs?	Improve the formatting and add images Photos for Class makes it easy to find images you can use without copyright concerns Embed YouTube videos to add variety (in Lessons): Search YouTube and filter for subtitled/CC videos	Easy Very Easy!
Do you give PowerPoint files to students?	Add images to PowerPoints that primarily contain text and bullets Photos for Class makes it easy to find images it's safe for you to use in your PowerPoints Use your PowerPoint notes to create multimedia presentations Use Office Mix or Screencast-O-Matic to narrate the presentation	Easy Medium
Do you already link to (or embed) videos?	Add worksheets for students to complete, emphasizing key points in videos Use Zaption to make videos interactive and to stimulate thinking	Easy Medium
Do you need to draw or illustrate something to explain it?	Use ExplainEverything to "draw" and narrate complex info	Medium
Do you need to demonstrate or explain something on your computer screen?	Use Screencast-O-Matic to create a screencast video	Medium
Do you need to provide a quick oral explanation to clarify a point?	Use Screencast-O-Matic to create a short "selfie" video (Example selfie at 3:24) Or use your smartphone or tablet to make the video, then publish it to YouTube and set it to "unlisted" so the world won't see it	Medium Easy
Do you need to interact with students in real time?	Use Sakai's Meetings tool to hold a webinar-style meeting with students online	Advanced