an ode to powerpoint

I do personally like PowerPoint as a means for presenting lessons, because I am for anything that gives someone something else to look at then my flabby self. In a classroom students tend to look all around when someone is talking to them, sure they try to look at the person speaking as much as possible but it just gets awkward after a while, and power point fixes that. Power point gives the students something to fixate their gaze on, and as a teacher if you put useful information on that, it helps concrete the learning process. So as long as the teacher doesn’t make the power point to busy or distracting it can be a very useful product to have in addition to your lecture. Also it gives the students a great opportunity to write down notes, because usually the students will copy everything down that you present to them in a power point, it’s kind of like magic. So if parts of your lecture are beneficial to them passing the test, put that info on the power point because students will write it down like the drones they sometimes are (drones in a good way, not a bad way). The only con of power point is if a teacher uses it instead of actually lecturing. So if they put all the info on a power point and don’t really explain it, it’s just a gigantic waste of time. So to sum up this seemingly long winded point, power point is very useful in a classroom if you do it correctly.

As for the presentations that were done in the classroom, I feel that they were done very well. For the most part people didn’t make their power points to busy and used them to enhance the information that they were conveying within their presentations. The biggest fundamental flaw that people make when using power point is putting too much on a slide, and for the most part our class didn’t fall into that trap. I really liked the videos and interesting pictures that people put in their slides, I really never thought about making the power point entertaining as well thought provoking, and bravo to my fellow students who did that. For example Maya’s presentation was very good because she used a experience she had, coupled with amazing pictures to teach Spanish, and oddly enough I now know how to say monkey in Spanish, and if a monkey is ever trying to kill me in a Spanish speaking country I can scream for help, so thank you Maya. My point is that the interesting pictures helped cement the Spanish words she was trying to teach, and because they were pictures she personally took, I was a 1000x more interested in them, than I would have been if she just got them off Google. As for Rachel she really did teach me what her presentation was about (even though I cannot remember the fancy science word she used), because her pictures and videos were entertaining as well as thought provoking in regards to her presentation.

In our class I was completely interested in all of the presentations because these people are my colleagues and I am pretty sure they can show me a presentation on grass growing and I will be as engaged like I was watching Star Wars for the first time. As for my fellow classmates (and believe me I throw myself into this group) I think we need to realize that our students won’t be that engaged, I am not saying there were some presentations that were boring, but doing something to keep a 16 year old kid whose only real interest in the world is video games and naughty parts engaged will definitely help. A good example of this is what Chelsea did, her presentation might not have been that interesting to that 16 year old kid (for me I thought it was awesome and I am already making my own olive oil) but the fact she gave us examples of the food, would have definitely made that kid a lot more interested. Power point presentations coupled with a lecture is probably pretty boring to young kids, but if we as a teacher can do something to perk up interest during it would be a great help to those students. I think best example of not doing this was my presentation, I presented a lot of pretty boring facts and only did something funny at the end, I really should have tried to sprinkle in some humor or something that would have woken up the students in the middle. That would be my only suggestion to my colleagues on their power points, but again I do really feel they all did a really good job.

I touched briefly on what I would have different in my own power point in the last paragraph. But even more than doing something to keep waning eyes awake, I think I would have found a way to convey the same information in a more entertaining way. I probably would have sprinkled more pictures, maybe a little less info on each slide, and used more metaphors to convey the same info. My colleagues paid attention to the whole thing, but their respectful adults, but I am not sure a 16 year old kid would have given me that same luxury with my power point; I sure as hell wouldn’t have when I was 16. My topic was inherently boring, and will always be a little bit boring, it is my challenge as a teacher to find a way to convey that information in a way that will make students engaged and listening, I believe I failed horribly at that. I would have put a video in the middle to break up the monotony of just constant information, I might have shown a picture of Nancy Pelosi next to the crypt keeper from Tales from the Crypt to show students the similarities between the two (I really wouldn’t have done that, I just like to bring up the fact she looks like him as much as possible), I would have done something that could have entertained my students. I failed at keeping my non existing students engaged, and that’s what I need to work on for next time.

So in conclusion, I must say I do like power point as a means of presenting lessons. My colleagues showed me great ways to do it, and that I did not realize could be done. So I suck at power points but hopefully this class and my colleagues presentations will show me what I can improve upon, or I’ll just become the boring teacher whose students use the class as a nap period.