The latest from dougbelshaw.com/blog
- Wednesday Wisdom #11: Exaggerated expectations
- Technology in History teaching: disseminating good practice in Turkey
- #uppingyourgame v0.4 now available!
- Things I Learned This Week – #11
- A brief history of infographics.
- You’re doing it wrong.
- Seven types of ambiguity and new literacies
- Wednesday Wisdom #10: Application and ability
- HOWTO: Create iTunes audiobooks from MP3s
- #uppingyourgame: an audio preview
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20 Ideas: Using Powerpoint as an interactive teaching & learning tool
91 CommentsAh… Powerpoint. The piece of software probably most loved and most reviled in equal measure by most of the computer-using population. On the one hand Powerpoint has given us visual learners something to scaffold lectures and talks around that we are on the receiving end of. On the other hand, it’s led to the, frankly shootable, offence of reading from Powerpoint slides – sometimes with the presenter being somewhat surprised by what comes next! In what follows here I’m going to look at ways you can use Powerpoint as an effective, interactive teaching and learning tool… :)
I’m assuming that those reading this know how to set up at least a basic Powerpoint presentation, are not unfamiliar with how to use the ‘design’ aspects and can implement slide transitions, change backgrounds, etc. First of all, here’s a list of keyboard shortcuts that you may find useful whilst you’re using Powerpoint as a teaching tool:
- b = turns the screen black (press again to get back to the slide you were on)
- w = turns the screen white (press again to get back to the slide you were on)
- CTRL+H = hides the pointer and navigation buttons
- CTRL+A = redisplays the hidden pointer
- Home = goes back to the first slide of the presentation
- (number) then ENTER = goes to a specific slide number
- CTRL-P – change the arrow to a pen
(replace CTRL with the Command key on Macs…)
The shortcut in the above list – changing the arrow to a pen – can be very effective if you have an interactive whiteboard (or even if you haven’t!) The pen is by default black, but can be changed by clicking on the navigation button or right-clicking and going to Pointer Options/Pen Color. This means that if you haven’t got a SMART interactive whiteboard (with the coloured pens) you don’t have to have a floating toolbar over the top of your presentation. And if you haven’t got an interactive whiteboard at all you can still enjoy some of the benefits (albeit in a slightly more cumbersome fashion!)
(click to enlarge)As a teaching tool Powerpoint is also extremely versatile and useful. Due to its fairly intuitive and familiar layout, students can create more than just overly-elaborate, garish presentations with sound effects and uncalled-for transitions. I once went to a day-long INSET by Ben Walsh (author of Exciting ICT in History) in which he showed us how interpretations exercises are possible in Powerpoint. This can be especially effective with poor writers or weaker students. For example:
(click to enlarge)
(click to enlarge)Powerpoint slides can be hyperlinked to one another, just like web pages, using the Insert hyperlink option from the Insert menu. Simple websites can be created this way, but even if you want to keep things on your school network (or even just your computer via a projector) you can have different ‘areas’ of information. An example of this would be a presentation I came across (but have now lost) about the Troubles in Northern Ireland which I used with my GCSE class. It had various sections which could be accessed from a main navigation page. The various sections also had hyperlinks to relevant websites and activities. This meant that it created a fairly ‘closed’ system in which students could find out in their own way and at their own pace about the Troubles. Given the sensitive nature of the topic and the extremely biased (and sometimes violent and disturbing) websites of various paramilitary organisations, this proved to be a very useful way of approaching the topic! :o
If you have lots of time on your hands you can create Powerpoint presentations with literally tens or hundreds of slides. Students could then make decisions about information which would lead to another scenario/decision, and so on. Much better than the usual consecutive (and often chronological) scroll through an essentially passive learning experience! (more about that here)
Finally, exploring the power behind Powerpoint enables you to come up with novel uses. Many have attempted to create, for example, a Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?-style game. The best I’ve come across is freely downloadable in my resources section here (more on creating interactive games here).
So in way of a conclusion, experiment with the features of Powerpoint. Try to break out of seeing it merely as a passive presentation tool, but actually as a learning tool which can be used to create ‘walled-gardens’, interpretations activities, and so much more! :D
Published on September 16, 2006 · Filed under: Uncategorized;
91 Responses to “20 Ideas: Using Powerpoint as an interactive teaching & learning tool”
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Fantatstic (as ever) Doug. Thanks for this – Im really looking forward to the other 18 – and I’ll try and add my own one I’ve got a blogging section set up on my site!
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Hi Doug,
Love the blog. I am a big fan of PowerPoint and use it every day in my
teaching. In fact I’m speaking about it at The Language Show at Olympia, London
in November. See link: http://www.thelanguageshow.co.uk/teacherszone/ – Death by
PowerPoint? Keep your finger on the trigger.Amongst other things, I’ll be talking about the powerful feature of triggers.
Essentially they allow independent actions to take place in a given slide
instead of following a sequential order. Here is a tutorial to give you a
flavour:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-ca/assistance/HA010873001033.aspxBest wishes
Joe
Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom – http://www.joedale.typepad.com
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Another great post in this series of 20 ideas! Have really enjoyed the past 3 and look forward to the forthcoming ones – will certainly be passing on this link to my colleagues in school and encouraging them to visit! Thanks Doug.
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Will said on September 18th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Shortcut info is extremely useful and I will be printing this for my department to have a read.
Cheers
Doug
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