As a high school student, I found PowerPoint presentations very useful and helpful with regards to my learning style. They were engaging and informative, and always presented in a way that I could understand. When I entered the site PowerPoint in the Classroom, I was slightly disappointed. This tutorial on creating PowerPoint's was cheesy and at times annoying. I am all for engaging people, but this was a bit overboard. I can certainly see the humour in it, however I would have preferred a bit less 'fluff' to sift through to get to the actual information. However, the experience I had with this tutorial is certainly a lesson learned for myself as a teacher. We want to engage our students, but we do not want to go too far and come across as patronising. We do not want to lose the information we are trying to present to all the bells and whistles added to the presentation. As a teacher, I would love to keep up to date with my students and know what makes them tick, know their interests and be able to include some of these in the classroom. This is where PowerPoint's would come in handy. I could edit my PowerPoint accordingly by adding pictures, sounds and charts which will help keep my students attention. By adding these tools to a PowerPoint presentation based on the popular culture at the time, I am sure that my students would be engaged and entertained, and are therefore sure to take in the information I am trying to teach. It takes away the 'slave to the textbook' idea that many students may have regarding their teachers.
References
PowerPoint in the Classroom, 2009. Retrieved July 29, 2009 from http://www.actden.com/pp2007/index.htm
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Hi Kelly,
ReplyDeleteWow, my sentiments exactly relating to the 'cheesyness' of the PowerPoint tutorials. If it was PowerPoint68 that the tutorial was addressing then perhaps the style and humour and pace of the
tutorial may have been somewhat warranted. (ie funky animations and nifty sound effect)
I actually found the tutorial an agonising experience. It was so 'text-driven', and 'tiresome' which is quite ironic as the very thing the tutorial is promoting is apparently this diverse, wonderful, engaging, flexible, easy to use software.
Tony.
That's good to hear Tony, I am glad I am not the only one that felt that way, as I wasn't too sure how bold it was of me to say what I said. However, I was suspicious that it may have been a 'curve ball' thrown in the course. I'm sure Scot will know if someone hasn't actually looked at the presentation, judging by thier response. :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting.
Hi Kelly
ReplyDeleteI didn't even finish the tutorial for powerpoint 2007, which is what I have. It was nauseating. The program is very simple, so I played around with it instead. You voiced my sentiments exactly.
Regards
Kerry