In the past I have had very little to do with Powerpoint or presentations so it is not a tool that I am very familiar with. I have heard of some schools requiring you to “present” your class using Powerpoint, the thought of which made me a little nervous. Thankfully I was never asked to do this.
I have made a Powerpoint presentation and uploaded it to my website www.aprilljames.weebly.com It is very basic as my skills using Powerpoint are very limited, but I did try to play around a bit and add a few different things. Prezi.com gave me a similar impression of its capabilities. There were just a few different effects in the way it was presented.
Both these tools would benefit visual and linguistic learners who like to see pictures and words to accommodate their learning. It would also help in a situation where there is a lot of information and students could print out a copy of the slides and add their own notes. Students could also work independently and at their own pace.
I can see how Powerpoint and Prezi.com would be effective in some classrooms, but as a Film and TV teacher, I feel there are so many more appropriate tools available for this subject. The whole idea of Film and TV is to encourage students to get involved in production and apply their learning of film as an art form to their own productions. I do not feel that Powerpoint or Prezi.com have the capabilities of doing this. Film and TV students have access to cameras, sound equipment and editing software, the use of which is a requirement of the subject, therefore I feel it would be more appropriate to encourage them to use that technology rather than Powerpoint or Prezi.com.
Powerpoint presentations too me are one of the best of all the ICT tools.I have used them a lot and find that the majority of students are engaged especial when you imbed movies. The only problem I find with powerpoint is a lot of people tend to put in too much texts in them and it then becomes death by powerpoint
ReplyDeleteHi Simon,
ReplyDeleteYes, I have seen, and am probably guilty myself of putting in too much writing on each slide. I can see your point, but for me, I feel there are so many more appropriate and engaging tools out there for me to use in my teaching context. And if I am expecting my students to use them, why not model them in my teaching?
From what I have seen a lot of the time is that teachers use powerpoint simply as an alternative to writing on the board. This is probably where my negative feelings towards Powerpoint are coming from, but I don't think you will convince me otherwise.