PowerPoint with a Purpose

I learned a lot from this assignment in LAE4860. Before this class, I had only very basic knowledge of Microsoft PowerPoint and its capabilities. I never thought how to use it for interactive purposes in the classroom, to be more specific. My idea of using it for a class was to create an unoriginal presentation that included only basic, default templates available through the program, and was utilized as another boring way to present basic facts or give a lecture to the class. I never knew or explored the ideas of creating a highly interactive presentation as I now have in this course.

Some things I learned along the way include setting a timer to the presentation. This makes the final product smoother, more professional, and thus more functional for students. Now, with my slide show based on the young adult novel, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, my students can view this together with me, then access it from their own computers, and explore the links separately (and in this case, even access our class WebQuest to complete certain tasks assigned online). This makes the educational experience much more enjoyable and encourages cooperative learning as students may want to work with partners or need to be paired with one for assistance. Such technology is generally unfamiliar to the majority of children in our public schools, and everyone (including the teacher) can benefit from each other as they experiment with programs that are new to them.

I also learned several other “tricks,” such as how to paste a video clip directly into my slide show, or include a sound clip imported from another source besides PowerPoint. These additions to my slide show, again, only enhance the material being presented and provide greater appeal to my students. Making a typical research assignment such as those embedded within my presentation more lively and interactive is an excellent tool for the classroom, especially when it comes to scaffolding and preparing students to dive into a piece of unknown literature from a time period unfamiliar to them.