What’s so special about using Powerpoint in the classroom?
Occasionally I read something that really resonates strongly with my current thoughts about teaching practice: what I do in the classroom, and what I’d like to do better.
Rob Lewis, writing for the British Council, has encapsulated what all of us could use with very little additional training and equipment. His reasoning: you don’t need fancy interactive white boards nor many more typing skills beyond what you might have with Microsoft Word already, to sit down with your learners (and a handy cordless keyboard and laptop) and bring their (and your) ideas and language to life with a projector.
Rob says: ‘… it’s easy to prepare before lessons. In class it can also give an extra dynamic, especially with the ‘clickability’ it gives you – the chance to quickly click through slides….’
Training
To get started, he identifies basics you need to know: how to add and delete slides, how to change layouts, how to start a presentation, changing font and background colour, custom animation, keyboard shortcuts, plus some general Microsoft Word ‘tricks’ such as copy and paste.
Activities in the classroom
From the videos, which activities grab your attention as being of immediate value or applicability to your practice? What skills are a priority for you to master?
- For more detail, and comments and additional ideas from other teachers, go to the blog post at the British Council.
Skills – some links to further resources
Basics
- This 8 part video crash course is suited to those with nil previous knowledge: http://youtu.be/VQlkhkbVhj4
- Here is a comprehensive list of Powerpoint skills that you can tick off progressively (have I mastered all of these?): michael’s notes on powerpoint 10 (from a CAE session). This wiki page also has a number of resources on the topic, thanks, Michael.
Intermediate
- Order of Animation: http://youtu.be/2H8v4KEzpSQ
- Adding and programming animations can get quite involved: http://youtu.be/WFLbAulU3fM
- Some really fancy techniques are demonstrated here: how to move things into a slide with a HAND (moving hands animation technique): http://www.screenr.com/yjd
Practical skills
- PowerPoint Skills and Tricks That Help Making Great PowerPoint Presentations Easier – useful article on bits n pieces
And for a bit of light relief:
Jill did a Powerpoint presie with narration and animations (basic) over here at CNLCStaff wiki (originally intended for low level ESL learners with no computer skills): http://cnlcstaffroom.acfe.vic.edu.au/Power+to+your+Powerpoint+skills
Design
- 6 ways to design like a pro from the e-learning coach. (Rapid strategies for advanced users)
- e-learning design & strategy: Cathy Moore – the classic “Dump the Drone” project.
- And for the last word on the topic, Tom Kuhler says, in his blog post ‘Here’s why Powerpoint 2007 helps you build better E-learning‘: PowerPoint’s a great authoring platform for elearning because of it’s easy to use and many people already have the basic skills to get started. It’s just a matter of learning to make the most of the tools. The returned value is that you can commit more time to the course content and building better learning experiences.‘
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Thanks to Jill and Michael for running this session yesterday. Though we maybe got a little off track it is always very inspiring for me to hear what other providers are doing and how we are all adapating the many things technology offers to the needs of our students.
I think sometimes it is easy to get carried away with all the tools out there but this session brought home that there is often a lot more we can do with the what we have to hand and are already familiar with before trying to bring in something new.
Thanks so much for coming Michael, great to have you there. I totally agree, it's good to hear what other people are doing. And especially when you feel inspired and realise you can use simple tools already in your toolkit.
Thanks for sharing stories of your experiences at North Melbourne too.
For now, i'll put a link to your post in the ACE network Ning, and recommend everyone take a look:
http://acenetwork.ning.com/forum/topics/blended-learning-pilot (login req'd)
Regards, michael