My Presentation Blog Post from EVSC ICATS Website

In the techie world we live in, there are endless possibilities to what teachers and students can do to liven up a presentation!  Today, I would like to share with you Blendspace.

Blendspace is an online presentation application, formerly known as Edcanvas.  I personally love the new name because it really describes what a user can do - blend different things together to make a very creative presentation.

Create an Account

You will first want to create an account.

1. Go to www.blendspace.com
2. Click on the blue Sign Up button
   
3. Who are you?
   
4. Choose I'm a Teacher
5. Follow the steps to creating your account

Now you are ready to start.  If you plan to use this as a classroom tool you can setup classes on your account and pass the class code out to students.  Once you have successfully created your account and logged in you should see a screen similar to this:

Create a Class

To create a class - just click on Classes.  You will then see:

Choose the grade level and name your class.  Once the class is created you will receive a class code to give to your students.  Students will create their accounts exactly like you but they will choose I'm a student and when prompted will enter your class code.

Now that you have all the "business" out of the way you can start creating lessons.  Blendspace calls all the creations lessons.  These lessons can be created in your account and also shared with specific classes that you have created.

** When students are creating a lesson for your class, make sure they select the class when the first begin creating.  ** 

Create a Lesson

Let's walk through creating a lesson and all the features of Blendspace.

Click on New Lesson - the next window will be

The parts of a Blendspace lesson:

• Templates:  There are five templates to choose from
• 
• Themes:  Two color themes.  The only color that changes is the color behind each section heading.  (Dark or colors)
• Play:  This is the feature you will use will presenting your Blendspace lesson.
• Print:  If you choose to print your lesson.

What can you put in your Blendspace lesson and how?  What is awesome about Blendspace is you can search YouTube, Google, Educreations and more right in your Blendspace lesson template!  You can also connect your Dropbox account and your Google Drive account!  Your options are:  Create your own Text or Quiz, YouTube, Google Search (website or image), Vimeo, Flickr, Educreations, Gooru, Website link/embed code, Upload your own media file, files from Dropbox or Google Drive, or insert a Bookmark.
To search for what you are looking for, first select what you want to insert (example - YouTube), then type in a search word.  I am creating a Blendspace lesson on Halloween so I searched Halloween kids songs.


Now I just simply click on the video I want (I can preview it right in the search box before using it, too) and drag it to the spot I want to place it.

*** To add additional rows to your lesson, click on Add Row underneath the lesson template:

Share Your Lesson

Now - once you have gotten everything you want placed onto your Blendspace lesson it is time to share it.  If you created it for your class you will share as follows:

Click on Share in the top right corner and a new window will pop up.

For your class - click on the class you want to share it with.

For others - you can share via Edmodo, Facebook, Twitter, email, grab an embed code for your blog or website or share the QR code with anyone!

Happy Blending!!  http://blnds.co/1clLJCy