Lesson 4 Blog

In this week’s lesson I have become more familiar with Presentation Programs for both the teacher and student. I have used Power Point in many classes for assignments and this lesson helped me to better understand why this presentation software is so effective. With Presentation software becoming so resourceful in the classroom we see less use for chalkboards, and overhead projectors. I can remember using overhead projectors when I was younger and what a hassle they could be time to time. Now with presentation programs, the teacher is able to present lessons in a more modernized way while creating a presentation that is visually appealing to the students, gaining a better response for students paying attention.

          As a future educator, I plan to use Power Points often in my classroom. I have developed Power Points for classes during my student teaching and it was always an effective teaching method. Students genuinely seemed more interested with the Power Points because I was able to incorporate lively text, colors, and graphics that capture their attention. This is a big improvement from the standard overhead projector that was once used religiously. I am able to add graphics and audio to the slides therefore allowing myself to teach to both visual and aural learners.

Power Point is also a great tool for students to become familiar with when working on assignments.  Students are able to familiarize themselves with the program when doing an assignment which is beneficial because they will most likely use this software again. I think that when programs like Word and Power Point are used by students, they have fun creating their own presentation and exploring all the different layout styles which in turn helps them become more familiar with the computer and its programs; as well as the topic they are discussing.

One of the things I like best about a Power Point is I am able to create a presentation and save it, so I store it for later use and I can easily transport it to and from school. This for me is an easier way of keeping up with my work rather than worrying about where I have placed a paper based presentation.         Many of the training I go to today incorporate Power Point into their discussion. I just think that people can become bored easily sitting through a lecture, While a Power Point at least gives you something visual to process. The only downfall I can see with Presentation software is that sometimes it ends up being a “user error”. Often time’s presenters will try to cram too much information into a presentation which conflicts with the time management aspect of the presentation. Another problem is that people can also choose colors, and or texts that are not appealing to others, or simply may not be visible to others. I have also run into the problem where I have been in a lecture and the speaker keeps having “Power Point Malfunctions” this is always unfortunate because I feel it takes away from the presentation they have worked hard on and focus all the attention to a piece of technology that they cannot control or work properly.

So although there can be some issues with Presentation Programs, I plan to use them in my class because I feel comfortable enough with the software and I do think it is a successful tool in the classroom. I think that throwing a Power Point Presentation into the mix every now and then, is a nice way to take a break from the normal everyday grind of learning and treat the students to a more advanced presentation of the material we are are learning.
For my Power Point Presentation, I created a "Wheels on the Bus" Song Slideshow and presented it to the one year old classroom at the daycare I work at. I presented it during circle time with the children and they really enjoyed it! The love to sing the song, it is one of their favorites, so it was a nice change to have something different to present to them rather then just singing lyrics. The children really like the pictures I included because they could easily point out "school bus". They also liked how I added effects to the word on each slide because they thought it was fun when words would move and bounce around, they got tickled everytime something would move! I think if I were to change one thing, I would like to add maybe so audio to the presentation, or I though it would be cute to add their pictures to some slides and incorporate them as though they are "passengers on the bus". They love anytime I say their names and interact with them in songs so I think they would have took a liking to that in the presentation. I really like that I was able to add graphics because I think for this age group seeing pictures and associating them with words is a very effective teaching mechanism to help them remebering words and meaning.