Recently in my Tech. class we learned about these brief presentations called "Pecha Kuchas." I found the concept a bit intriguing and thought I would attempt to make one of my own to see if I they could be of use in my future classroom.
Technologically speaking, creating Pecha Kuchas isn't extremely hard or anything, but it is a bit time consuming. I don't consider myself technologically skilled by any means, but neither am I technologically incompetent, and I was able to use the technology needed to create a Pecha Kucha rather easily. The only real skills needed to make one of these presentations are a basic knowledge in creating slideshows, an understanding of how to find loyalty-free images, and some experience with screen casting software. The latter of these skills was the only thing that I really had to learn, and it was not too difficult. The biggest problem I had with creating my presentation was with the actual recording of my discourse. I don't know how many times I got to the very ending of my slides and would mess up and have to start completely over. That was honestly the only really difficult part of the experience.
Over all, I think Pecha Kuchas are very relevant in the 21st Century and have a lot of educational potential. They would be a great way to provide guidance to students when presenting new information on a subject. For example, the Pecha Kucha I created (seen below) is a brief overview of the major literary time periods. An English teacher could present something like this to their students at the beginning of the school year as a prelude into the literary time periods they might be exploring that year. Or, say my students are going to be reading Lord of the Flies in class. I could create a Pecha Kucha that gives the students a brief overview of the novel, the author, and the themes and symbols they should be looking for when reading. I think these presentations are very effective because the images, when used correctly, can really add emotion to the information and make retention much more likely.
