SL.CCR.5 — that's the 5th College and Career Readiness anchor standard within the Speaking and Listening strand of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for ELA/Literacy — says:

Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

Back when I was in high school, this would have been the “make a Powerpoint” standard; with the bevy of Web 2.0 options that are now only a browser away, this standard has all kinds of implementation options.

The “Water Changes Everything” Example

In my last post, I profiled Scott Harrison and his “information presentation” work via Charity:Water as one exemplar of SL.CCR.4. I also linked to the above video, but I'd like to discuss it in greater depth here as a case study for this anchor standard.

In this video, we see:

• Strategic use of digital media (YouTube)
• Strategic use of visual displays of data
  • Notice how the statistics and proportions are graphically represented
  • Notice how the exponential growth of impact is represented at the end of the film
• Enhanced understanding
  • Notice how, at the end of a short video, students could summarize the social and economic implications of the water crisis

In short, this video was super-strategic, and as a result, complex ideas and information were presented in a manner that enhanced our comprehension of the water crisis.

This is the goal of SL.CCR.5 — it envisions students leveraging digital media and visual displays of data for communication purposes.

But that video was professionally produced!

Some might say, “But wait! That's the work of a team of professional folks — how can our K-12 students do that kind of thing?”

It's true that our students likely won't be able to create something as sick-nasty and polished as the “Water” video, but there are lots of Web 2.0 options for presenting information. I'm going to list some of the resources I know of, and in the comments section, I'd love it if you tech savvy folks would add applications you've had success with.

Websites for implementing SL.CCR.5:

• In Google Docs, students can create Powerpoint-ish presentations.
• Prezi is the jazzed up version of Powerpoint-ish presentations — it swoops and zooms and spins.
• At XtraNormal, students write scripts for cartoon characters to speak. Lots of room for creativity and experimentation here.
• Easel.ly and Creately are nice for creating infographics to display data.

What are some websites you use to enable students to do SL.CCR.5ish stuff? Share via a comment below!