Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Journal #9

Creating and Shari ng Information with Multimedia Technologies

 
 
Focus Question: How can teachers create PowerPoint presentations for maximum teaching potential and learning impact?
 
 
I am focusing on this question mainly because of my interest in bettering my technology skills.  I find that PowerPoint presentations are useful and have the ability to reach students in a unique and creative way.
 
 
 
PowerPoint, a multimedia presentation software package that is used at home and in schools. For teachers,who must continually present information to students in ways that will engage and inspire, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of PowerPoint is essential.PowerPoint is not the only presentation software program, Open Office Impress, Keynote, and Corel Presentations produce high-quality presentations as well.
 
Multimedia technologies such as the ones I previously listed, offer ways for teachers to incorporate dynamic information presentations into a fun and engaging way to teach your students!
 
Powerpoint has detractors as well as admirers. In a short pamphlet, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, information theorist Edward R. Tufte argued that the " ready-made designs" or templates that come with this software "usually weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis."  Tufte argued that PowerPoint is "presenter-oriented", and "not content-oriented, not audience oriented". Successful teaching involves skillfully weaving interactive, engaging approaches to presentations with substantive academic content that matches the needs and interests of your students.
Tufte offers three main suggestions for improving the quality of electronic presentation:
  • Present meaningful content that matters to your audience; "audience boredom is usually a content failure, not a decoration failure."
  • "Use PowerPoint as a projector for showing low-resolution color images, graphics, and videos."
  • Include paper handouts in your presentation as a way to "effectively show text, numbers, data, graphics and images." -( to save paper, I would personally suggest having the students take personal notes).
Strategies for Using PowerPoint with Your Students
Educators think about PowerPoint in terms of information presentation design- the arrangement of written and pictorial information so that its intended audiences can easily and clearly understand it.  Information presentation design is a lot like graphic design, which is the process of arranging type and images to communicate information visually.
 
When using PowerPoint, it is important to ask yourself two questions:
  • Who is my audience
  • What do I want my audience to leave knowing or remembering?    
 Be sure to stay focused on your students and what you want them to learn, it is easy to get caught up in the mechanics of the PowerPoint tool itself. Creating interactive PowerPoint presentations involves the following strategies.
Make visual presentations interactive, varied, and memorable
Use Visual Text to Generate Class Discussion; Students respond actively to visual images that convey academic content.
Promote Visual Analysis of Discussion Topics.
Display Questions or Comments for Short Writing Assignments.
Use the Slides as Attention-Getters;rather than reading information aloud to a class, PowerPoint slides should be attention-getting devices to focus students' minds on the topic at hand.
Develop Your Own PowerPoint Learning Games; Homemade PowerPoint Games is a website developed by World Wide Interactive Learning Design to provide teachers with a collection of PowerPoint based templates so they and their students can construct learning games together.
 
 
Tech Tool Link: TeacherTube
 
 
 
TeacherTube, launched in March 2007 as an educational version of the popular YouTube video site, provides free online space for sharing instuctionally and educationally themed videos made by other teachers and students! This site is educator friendly and easy to navigate. I had little confusion finding this site and think it is a great online-resource for both teachers and students.
 
Chapter Summary & Connection:
 
This chapter allowed me to edit previous PowerPoints, so that they were educational friendly and substancial. I think PowerPoints are a great way for teachers and students to express an idea and engage the leaners in the lesson plan in a unique way. One term I was not familiar with in this chapter is, Vodcast. Vodcast is a podcast that contains video images, delivered via the internet.
 
References:
 
Maloy, Robert W. "Chapter 9/ Creating and Sharing Information with multimedia TechnologiesTransforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2011. 242-273. Print


1 comment:

  1. You dug deep into learning more about PowerPoint and more importantly, the multimedia presentation type for use in the classroom - good for you! There are definitely poor uses of PP, but there is potential for it when done well. Even better than having teachers use it is when students can use it to create what they know - again when done effectively! :) There are other presentation tools that are similar and web-based (and free) that students like to use: Prezi and Slide Rocket.

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