As part of the ICT PLT, Peter has been experimenting with PowerPoint as a lesson delivery tool.

Why PowerPoint?

PowerPoint is an excellent tool to use in the delivery of presentations to students as PPs can be created quickly and easily. They also have the benefit of being able to be created in advance and reused, as opposed to written board notes which cannot be. Another reason to use PowerPoint is the ability to add videos, links and other media to your presentations simply.

PowerPoint presentations can add also add a bit of colour to your lessons as you can see in the example below.

Developing concepts

A presentation can begin with simple examples that develop into more complicated ones through the use of animation. By using animation you can reveal and conceal certain information in line with your lesson. While you are doing so, as you do not need to be writing it out on the board with your back to them, you can interact with the students, answer their questions and catch the paper aeroplanes that they throw at you.

Reusable and sharable

As they are saved in an electronic format, you can keep your PowerPoints, develop and update them year-to-year and reuse them – making them a good investment of your time even if they take a while to put together in the first place.

You can also share them with your students if they are having trouble understanding a concept or you would like them to go over a concept for revision.

Taking it to the next level

By using a voice recorder you can create podcasts of your lessons and share the whole thing with your students.

PowerPoint also has plug-ins that allow you to import your PP into Movie Maker and create a film out of it (that can incorporate the audio from your podcast).

Another way to make a bit of a show out of your PP is to use Auto-timing (from the Animations Tab, Advance slide> Automatically after…). Then, when you save your PP as a PowerPoint Show (Windows button>Save as>PowerPoint Show), your presentation will automatically open in the Slide Show view and progress by itself.