Powerpoint Inprovisation

For this week’s topic, our task was to create a PowerPoint presentation for one of our classes. I didn’t think this week would be that difficult, but to my surprise, making a PowerPoint was harder than I thought. Once I had a cup of coffee and got the hang of the program, it was easy to use and I finished my slide quite promptly. I thought it was a short learning curve, as it didn’t take long to pick (surprisingly!). I think PowerPoint is a convenient tool to use as it is used almost everywhere and is on almost every Microsoft Office computer. It has so many options and greats ways of presenting information; classroom instruction, slide shows etc.

There was a link on the ICT online course for this week, that I personally felt wasn’t very helpful , as it was showing you how to create a PowerPoint in the old version of Microsoft Word. I tried to follow it as much as I could, it did come in handy at same stages, but I decided just to go it alone and play around with all PowerPoint’s applications. It was very frustrating trying to embed a YouTube link into the PowerPoint. I found a very useful YouTube video provided by a fellow student that showed a clear step by step process of how to embed a video. It took me quite some time to find an appropriate YouTube link as quality of picture is important as it keeps the presentation professional (unless the slide calls for an amateur YouTube video). After finding the appropriate link, it took me a few go’s to try and embed the video. I soon realised, with the help of the IT Librarian, that I was copying and pasting the wrong URL. In the end I did prevail!

I am doing my Embedded Professional Learning (Teaching practicum) with years 10, 11 & 12 Drama, Music and English (English isn’t one of my teaching areas, but it’s on Shakespeare so I am giving it a go!). Next week I am taking a 40min class on Improvisational Theatre, so I thought what better topic to base my PowerPoint on; I may even use it in class next week. I wanted to create a PowerPoint that catered for varies learning types, reduce “teacher talk” and used ICT’s to engage learners. The PowerPoint presentation requires student to work in pairs, and complete the series of activities, then present their work to the other students in the class. This could be expanded to the whole class working together and presenting their work (or show) to the whole school. Due to the activities requiring students to make up their own scenarios and allowing them to respond in the ways they choose, the students would be creating a presentation with authentic purposes. They will also get a good laugh out of the activity and build their personality and people skills.

As stated above, when making this presentation I tried to cater for all learners; visual, auditory and kinaesthetic. I included sounds and shapes for auditory and visual learners that the students could relate to and use to help recall information. I included various activities within the PowerPoint slide which students are to complete together. Kinaesthetic learners retain information when they get the chance to practise using the important variations of the skill or process (Marzano and Pickering (1997), Cited in the DOL Teachers Manual). This way they aren’t just sitting at a computer, they get up every so often, move and do, have different approaches to what they are learning, plus they got to engage in collaborative activities.

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Powerpoint Inprovisation

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References

Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (with Arrendondo, D. E., Paynter, D. E., Blackburn, G. J., Brandt, R. S., … Whistler, J. S.). (1997). Dimensions of learning teacher’s manual (2nd ed.). Alexandra, VA: ASCD

PowerPoint development tools, Bill Chapman http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications/ppt/ppt.pdf

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