Reflection task 3: Presentations

In education, PowerPoint is commonly used as a presentation tool in which teachers use dot points to create slides before standing up at the front of the room and putting their students to sleep as they give long-winded explanations to get their point across. Today’s blog post will dive into the many ways in which PowerPoint can be used to create an interactive and engaging learning environment.

Image source: powerpoint-13-1174816.png

Speaking from my personal experience, the introductory paragraph above is an accurate representation of how I have previously used PowerPoint within my teaching practices. No, I am not proud of it, but with no knowledge of how to use PowerPoint to create interactive presentations, I always found myself reverting to what I knew – basic and boring presentations. However, times are changing, and I have now learnt some nifty ways in which I can use PowerPoint to spice up my lessons and hopefully kept my students engaged and awake. 

Interactive PowerPoints

One way in which PowerPoint can be used beyond the standard presentation is through interactive PowerPoints. Interactive PowerPoints allow teachers to deliver learning in a more flexible and powerful way that is merely limited by an individual’s creative mind (Jones, 2003). As shown here, PowerPoint can be used as an interactive tool where students explore and discover beyond the traditional PowerPoint presentation by taking control of their learning. Teachers can use interactive PowerPoints either at the whole class level, during group work or as an individual learning strategy (Jones, 2003). Learning examples of ways in which teachers can include interactive PowerPoints include presenting questions and answers as shown in the example provided or having students create their own interactive museum-style presentations and many more. Setting up interactive PowerPoints is relatively easy once a basic understanding is acquired. Additionally, through an ability to customise with PowerPoint, interactive PowerPoints can be incorporated into all teaching and learning areas. However, it is worth noting, that whilst easy to set up, creating interactive PowerPoints of this nature is time-consuming, especially if multiple links within a slide are included. Therefore, when planning and teaching with interactive PowerPoints, appropriate time allocations should be considered.

Image source: Screen capture demonstrating how to link slides

PowerPoint as a movie

Another way in which PowerPoint can be used beyond the standard ‘chalk and talk’ is by creating a PowerPoint movie. PowerPoint movies involve users creating a standard PowerPoint presentation and recording the slideshow presentation with commentary before saving it as an mp4 file. Within the learning environment, PowerPoint movies can serve as both an in-class learning activity or assessment with endless possibilities for what students can create and design with PowerPoint movies. Additionally, if using PowerPoint to present content to students, teachers can record their presentation and post it to a shared learning space where students who are either absent or wish to revisit the lesson can simply view the presentation at a time that suits them. PowerPoint movies are extremely easy to create, and users can customise their movies through different texts, images, embedded files, animations and transitions. Additionally, as users can re-record their movie as many times as they wish, PowerPoint movies serve as a great substitute for student classroom oral presentations. Here is a short movie I created for a Year 10 Biology class. 

Image source: Screen capture demonstrating how to record PowerPoint presentations

Legal, safe and ethical considerations

As mentioned in my previous two blogs, here and here, a teacher’s responsibility to provide legal, safe and ethical learning opportunities extends into the digital world. Regarding using PowerPoint, teachers should be aware of how to control access to their work. Within the PowerPoint program, users can set passwords to restrict other users from both opening and modifying their files. Without setting passwords, files may be shared online with unknown users which could cause safety and ethical concerns such as user privacy, confidentiality and anonymity. Therefore, teachers should ensure to teach students how to set file passwords to ensure students can safely create, interact and share their learning with PowerPoint.

Another consideration when using PowerPoint, and specifically interactive PowerPoints, is to ensure students are only creating and accessing appropriate educational content. As many young people are exposed to inappropriate content online that they are not developmentally ready for, it is a teacher's responsibility to set parameters and rules relating to student use of PowerPoints for interactive learning (eSafety Commissioner, n.d.). Education Queensland provides a range of online resources which can be found here, to help teachers explore how to safely include online learning within their classroom.

PowerPoints with SAMR

Below is an example of how teachers can include PowerPoint in their teaching and learning within the HPE classroom with reference to the SAMR model. 

Image source: User created Microsoft SmartArt


Final thoughts

Overall, PowerPoint is a teaching and learning tool that is already commonly used within the education space. However, as it is commonly used in a way that is by no means exciting or engaging, teachers should strive to allocate a small amount of time, as that is all that’s needed, to learn some more advanced and exciting features of the program. By implementing these features, I envision teachers will not only engage their learners more effectively, but also create fun, challenging and rewarding lessons that will see learners achieve greater learning satisfaction and success. 

References

eSafety Commissioner. (n.d.). Inappropriate content: factsheet. https://www.esafety.gov.au/educators/training-professionals/professional-learning-program-teachers/inappropriate-content-factsheet

Jones, A. M. (2003). The use and abuse of powerpoint in teaching and learning in the life sciences: A personal overview. Bioscience Education, 2(1), 1-13.