Powerpoint Presentations

I have been spending a great deal of time learning how to use,and then develop a Power Point presentation. Other than viewing Power Point presentations in my university study, I have had no access to this form of ICT.

To fulfil the ICT course requirement of designing my own Power Point presentation, I decided to design a Power Point presentation that would be targeting year 6/7 students, teaching them how to build their own Power Point presentation. I tried to keep it very simple, yet use as many of the features of the program that I could so that the students could get an idea of how creative they can be. I also embedded a video I found on You Tube that gives a very basic description of what the different tabs are used for and how to put together a basic slide show. It was quite a feat for me to be able to embed that video into my slide show, and I actually had to watch several You Tube videos on the topic before I could successfully complete the task.

Now my challenge is to place the Power Point presentation here on my blog. I have spent several frustrating hours trying to achieve this goal but no no avail. I have shed tears over this problem so have decided to calmly walk away from it for now, and return when I am feeling more confident again. I can only say that from this experience I have learnt that when I am teaching students about new technologies, I will help my students develop their skills by presenting the learning experience in a series of clearly outlined step-by-step processes so that students can get a good grasp of the technology and build up their confidence, before I send them out on their own to learn by experience.

In terms of using Power Point in the classroom, I feel it would be quite beneficial to the students, as it presents information in a format that is different to the chalk and talk and/or printed handouts senarios. Power Point allows the student to see pictures, diagrams, flow charts, etc being presented with the support of verbal information from the teacher. This is the ideal learning environment for visual learners, enabling them to retain and process the information being presented to them. Sequential learners would also benefit from the use of Power Point, as the very nature of the tool requires the information to be presented in small chunks of information given in a linear sequence.



References
Felder, R & Soloman, B. (2010) Learning styles and strategies, retrieved from http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm