Week Four

PowerPoint presentations are an essential tool for utilizing educational technology to its fullest.  The ease with which you can create a professional looking slide is the best attribute of PowerPoint.  The slides can be very simple or very complex, whichever you decide.  With simple clicks of your mouse the slide can go from black and white to colorful backgrounds and text, clip art, photos, and sound effects.  The possibilities are limitless. 

For my EDOL 533, Educational Technology, class we were assigned the task of creating a PowerPoint presentation and presenting it to a school-age child.  The presentation I presented was on Long Division.  Since I am not a classroom teacher I presented to a fifth grade student I go to church with.  The presentation showed the steps and strategies for solving long division problems without remainders. 

The thing I was most proud of in my PowerPoint presentation was the simplicity of it.  I believe that my biggest struggle in creating presentations in the past has been including too much information.  Since my target audience was fifth graders I knew that I needed to be very simplistic in my style and very organized. I didn’t want to distract them from the importance of the mathematical strategies. 

If I were to create the presentation again I might use more of the sound effects and clip art to enhance the presentation.  I like the simplicity of my first presentation since I was intending to introduce new material.  If I were using it on a later day or as a review I would like to make it more fun.  For example, after we had solved the problem as a class using Smart Board markers I would like to have applause as we move to the next slide.  I might also add a split screen challenge slide where two students could go to the front of the room and compete to solve the problem correctly the quickest.  There are so many possibilities that I could add and change the slides for each successive day in that unit. 

The student I presented to is a bright girl.  I know she is a good student and mature for her age.  She loved the presentation and thought it would be really neat if her teachers used PowerPoint presentations in class.  They currently do not.  She is familiar with them from church only.  I think that it is important for teachers to respond to technology and the things their students enjoy.  I would love to be able to present to an actual class to get a better feel for how a diverse group of students would respond.  Then I would know how to teach the material more effectively.  I am certain that I will be creating more PowerPoint presentations in the future as I become a classroom teacher.