Comments on: The landscape of Powerpoint for elearning

By: Seth

Seth — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:33:58 +0000

As a student in Dr. Clifford’s EDU250 class, I have recently been instructed on methods of using powerpoint in the classroom. My powerpoint project was developing a “Jeopardy!” game, of sorts. Using action buttons, links, and tables, I was able to create a game board that would link to the different questions. I remember playing this in High School and it being a great learning tool. I think powerpoint really is a great resource for teachers (as long as they can get away from the boring bullet point notes we have all seen hundreds of times).

We look forward to having you in our class!

By: Melanie

Melanie — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:20:33 +0000

I am a student at Union University and am currently in Dr. Clifford’s education class, technology in the classroom. We have completed a few task on powerpoint this semester. I learned a lot about powerpoint through one of our task where we had to create an interactive powerpoint game. I learned about action buttons and how to connect my powerpoint slides together. I also learned the importance of creativity and how each slide needs to draw the students attention to it. I think that powerpoints are great for teachers to be familiar with because changes things within a classroom up and most all students will look and listen to something visual that is fun and eye-catching. Do you thing that development or delivery powerpoints work better within a classroom and why?

By: Hope UU

Hope UU — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:01:50 +0000

I am a Union University pre-service student. I do agree that “e-learning” can be a great way to integrate technology in the classroom. There are several different ways that you can use PowerPoint as a learning tool in the classroom. You can make your presentations fun and interactive to keep focus during the slides. In my EDU-250 class, here at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee, we have made PowerPoint presentations in the form of games, using the action buttons. I learned a new tool that I could use to make PowerPoint presentations more fun for students. I created a “Geopardy” game using my Geometry Standards. I also felt that this new way of using PowerPoint presentations would be beneficial on days where I was absent as a teacher. This would be an easy assignment for a substitute teacher to use and it would not be a wasted day of learning. I find that in teaching math, it is most successful with the more practice and homework the students do in class and on while they are away from school. By creating my own website that is available to my students to use, it gives me a portal to “sneak” in fun ways to do homework. By creating interactive games, you can disguise just doing homework problems out of the book or from the teacher off of the board during class. This interactive tool is the best way to get through to this generation of technology users.

By: Ashlin

Ashlin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:31:53 +0000

I am a student at Union University and currently enrolled in a class titled: “technology in the classroom.” We have used several different aspects of powerpoint thus far. One of my favorite assignments using PP was creating a jeopardy-type game used for students to review a certain concept, or subject area. As a future teacher, I desire to be the best teacher I am able to be. Which includes pushing and stretching myself to use my resources, such as PP, to help my students in any way possible. Students often get tired of sitting, doing worksheets all day long. An interacitve PP game is a great way to break up the sometimes dull ordinary school work. PP has so many different features and options, it is our job to explore and make the most of them! What a great opportunity!!

By: Hope (UU)

Hope (UU) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:19:51 +0000

By: Danielle (UU)

Danielle (UU) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 17:52:14 +0000

In my Education 250 class, we have learned to intergrate slides to create a game in Powerpoint. I found this very clever in the fact that it would work as an excellent review game for students. I was able to create a type of Jeoprody game that was fun and interesting for the third grade level. My endorsement is physical education, therefore I took physical activity and made it fun and interesting. Turning exercise into a game makes it a lot more fun for students. ‘
I find this would be very efficient and I am sure I will use it in the future with my own classroom.

By: DePaula

DePaula — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:21:10 +0000

As a current trainer/instructional designer, I use powerpoint as the foundation for creating online modules, presentations, etc. When I use PowerPoint in the workplace, there are specific guidelines that we must follow, such as font style and size, background, bullets, transitions, etc. I do think that when you are in an environment where you will product multiple presentations or modules for users that there must be some type of consistency.

The company that I presently work for use powerpoint to publish with Articulate and Captivate. Using PowerPoint in design makes it easy for others to view the files electronically prior to creating modules using other software. Mostly everyone has Microsoft Powerpoint, which makes it easy for getting approvals from clients.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:54:55 +0000

I agree with Michael Dowdy’s comments entirely and am seeing the same sorts of requirements in the workforce that he mentioned. I work with global compliance training, so even removing the need for translation; it is either very expensive or very inconvenient to offer a live training that a global audience can attend. I am seeing a lot of SMEs creating a PowerPoint presentation to deliver to a live audience as usual, but adding the step of recording the audio as they deliver it. My team can then take the PowerPoint and the audio, sync it up using Articulate and publish it to our LMS. Now the whole world has access to the “live” presentation within 24 hours and anyone can revisit it any time. Until business stops using PowerPoint as the main stand-and-deliver communication tool it will be a critical part of rapid creation e-learning.

By: prathi

prathi — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:35:47 +0000

One of the professors I worked under had a rule to create PowerPoint slides which she termed the “1-2-3-4-5 presentation rule”! According to this rule, the transition effect from one slide to another had to be the same(choose ONE animation style and stick with it); use just TWO colors (one for the text and one for the background) and keep it consistent throughout the presentation; a presentation needs to have THREE sections-title, details and summary; the FOUR C’s needed to be in place – clear, consistent,clutter-free and contrast; finally, no-slide should have more than FIVE pieces of information (with up to 5 words to describe each). Based on the grades, it seemed to work well for the course she taught (undergraduate biochemistry). The basic rules for any presentation can remain the 1-2-3-4-5 rule but more finesse needs to be added for purposes of e-learning.PowerPoint is ubiquitous and its ease-of-use makes it so popular for e-learning content development and delivery tool. The tips recommended in the readings clearly state what works and what doesn’t while using PowerPoint. It is safe to say that using PowerPoint effectively for e-learning requires “mash-ups” with other tools(For eg., PPT->Flash; PPT->LMS etc) that have been especially designed for e-learning purposes.

By: Chia ming Cheng

Chia ming Cheng — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:15:53 +0000

Read other people comments. It seems ELearning with PowerPoint is a trend in the USA, but it isn’t in Taiwan. So, when I worked in Taiwan, I do not have any chance to use PowerPoint. I got many ideas from these comments and evoke more interesting.
I learned Godin, Kawasaki, Lessig, and Takahashi lecture-type when I studied master degree, but the professor did not tell us who designed these lecture-types.
As I know, PowerPoint is not just a presentations tool. I had one special experience; I saw one my classmate designed PowerPoint and exhibited his project to us. He used PowerPoint to design an animation video. So from the example, we can know do not put anything in a frame. You can create more than you think.