PowerPoint has been around since 1987. That makes this technology application 20 years old. I was surprised to find out (from wikipedia) that it was originally a program that ran on the Apple Macintosh. Microsoft purchased the program from the original developers for $14 million. Since the 1990's, PowerPoint has been used as a presentation software by business people, teachers, and students. I don't have any real statistics, but I'm venturing a guess that it is used in every school. Even by non-techy people, it's easy to use due to the features that Microsoft has put into the program to meet the needs of presenters and audiences.
When I taught second graders how to create a slide, I told the students that this program is very easy to use, because it's "built for grownups". Kids of course, would be able to figure out what to do to create slides with images and text just by following the directions right on the screen. I worked with children in every grade level as they produced PowerPoint presentations for a variety of classes and for a variety of purposes. Along the way, students would learn the features of the program: animations, charts and graphs, sounds, embedding movies, and using the programs to create products other than presentations, such as picture books and scrapbooks.
If I were still a computer teacher, I would have to be aware of the fact that there is a great deal of criticism over the use of the program. I'm not sure where it started, perhaps with Yale's Edward Tufte and his book PowerPoint is Evil. Read the review from this link to get a sense of the major criticisms of PowerPoint. Basically, it's believed that most presentations created with PowerPoint are pretty awful. Even the creators, Rober Gaskins and Dennis Austin agree as told in an article in the Wall Street Journal.
The major complaints include:
Don McMillan encapsulates every kind of mistake made by bad presenters. This movie is hilarious, but really gets the point across. I sent this to my husband last summer as he was struggling to complete a 60 slide presentation that was supposed to sum up his business to a set of investors. I'm sure his presentation didn't have any of these common mistakes.
One of the most compelling criticisms is that creating PowerPoint presentations do not develop writing skills. Particularly with students, assigning PowerPoint presentations instead of writing essays is most likely a disservice because students are not utilizing a more important literacy skill - that of writing. In the articles I mentioned above, the big complaint is that business people do not write, instead they formulate a presentation, with a bunch of bullet points and charts.
Even with the criticism, it is still one of the most widely used applications, so everyone has to know how to create a PowerPoint presentation. Teach children how to use the program in a whole different way. Teach them to use PowerPoint as truly a visual aid, not as the sole source of information. It is a medium for communication and can be used effectively and ineffectively. We need to learn more about it's effective use. We've all seen really bad presentations with really bad PowerPoint slide shows to go along with it. Think about how we teach our students. Always start with writing - students should write out their essay or speech and that piece of writing should be assessed using the same rubric and grading criteria as an essay not requiring a visual component. PowerPoint presentations should help tell the message of the essay (which presumably could be used as a script) and students should approach the presentation that way
Each slide can use the following
Check out this video done by an educational technology specialist:
By the way, if you following the links to the Presentation Zen, you'll find it is an extremely interesting blog if you want to learn more about presentations. In addition, check out SlideShare - "the world's largest community for sharing presentations on the web.". Look for presentations that are featured and popular. Most of them follow "the new rules".
When I taught second graders how to create a slide, I told the students that this program is very easy to use, because it's "built for grownups". Kids of course, would be able to figure out what to do to create slides with images and text just by following the directions right on the screen. I worked with children in every grade level as they produced PowerPoint presentations for a variety of classes and for a variety of purposes. Along the way, students would learn the features of the program: animations, charts and graphs, sounds, embedding movies, and using the programs to create products other than presentations, such as picture books and scrapbooks.
If I were still a computer teacher, I would have to be aware of the fact that there is a great deal of criticism over the use of the program. I'm not sure where it started, perhaps with Yale's Edward Tufte and his book PowerPoint is Evil. Read the review from this link to get a sense of the major criticisms of PowerPoint. Basically, it's believed that most presentations created with PowerPoint are pretty awful. Even the creators, Rober Gaskins and Dennis Austin agree as told in an article in the Wall Street Journal.
The major complaints include:
- The slides are used as "cue cards" for the presenter, not to help the audience understand the message
- Poor layout and design due to the use of default templates make presentations hard to read or hideously boring
- Ideas are are simplified into bulleted lists and stories are sometimes turned into a set of disparate facts
- Every slideshow usually ends up looking like everyone elses
Don McMillan encapsulates every kind of mistake made by bad presenters. This movie is hilarious, but really gets the point across. I sent this to my husband last summer as he was struggling to complete a 60 slide presentation that was supposed to sum up his business to a set of investors. I'm sure his presentation didn't have any of these common mistakes.
One of the most compelling criticisms is that creating PowerPoint presentations do not develop writing skills. Particularly with students, assigning PowerPoint presentations instead of writing essays is most likely a disservice because students are not utilizing a more important literacy skill - that of writing. In the articles I mentioned above, the big complaint is that business people do not write, instead they formulate a presentation, with a bunch of bullet points and charts.
Even with the criticism, it is still one of the most widely used applications, so everyone has to know how to create a PowerPoint presentation. Teach children how to use the program in a whole different way. Teach them to use PowerPoint as truly a visual aid, not as the sole source of information. It is a medium for communication and can be used effectively and ineffectively. We need to learn more about it's effective use. We've all seen really bad presentations with really bad PowerPoint slide shows to go along with it. Think about how we teach our students. Always start with writing - students should write out their essay or speech and that piece of writing should be assessed using the same rubric and grading criteria as an essay not requiring a visual component. PowerPoint presentations should help tell the message of the essay (which presumably could be used as a script) and students should approach the presentation that way
Each slide can use the following
- Really big text in a headline format (Takahashi Method)
- Beautiful images, even if they seem unrelated, to fill the entire slide and use not text (Godin Method)
- Combination of both - some slides with images, some with really big important text
- Avoid the templates at all costs!
Check out this video done by an educational technology specialist:
By the way, if you following the links to the Presentation Zen, you'll find it is an extremely interesting blog if you want to learn more about presentations. In addition, check out SlideShare - "the world's largest community for sharing presentations on the web.". Look for presentations that are featured and popular. Most of them follow "the new rules".
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