|
In
July 2001, my department was equipped with two PowerPoint
projectors, an interactive white board and two laptops by KPMG.
I use PowerPoint as a tool at the start of every lesson
to recap on the previous lesson and introduce the aims and
objectives of the new lesson.
Six months on, I wonder how I ever coped without my
laptop and PowerPoint.
I
find that PowerPoint is an excellent medium for doing a teacher
presentation using colour slides, animated diagrams, graphs and
texts, that catch the pupils attention and interest.
It is also easy to use and very versatile.
I
have always been a bit of an exhibitionist.
I firmly believe that as far as is humanly possible,
history lessons should be fun.
My favourite lesson can be found on the SchoolHistory
web site on: Why were people willing to die for their religious
beliefs?
I spent a lot of time animating the sources and
introducing sound effects which can be both easily imported and
made in PowerPoint.
It is possible to make some quiet disgusting noises that
really make the students sit up and take note.
I
have found that the best way to learn how to use PowerPoint is
to experiment and let my students teach me a few tricks.
Whenever students make video notes or research and write
up their projects for homework I always try get at least three
or four of them to do a PowerPoint presentation.
The results can be amazing, once they get past the
embarrassment of standing in front of their peers.
It
is important to give the student clear headings before they
embark on making these presentations
or the results tend to be very text heavy.
It is always a good idea to get them to produce a script
or a hand out to go with the presentation.
When I have split classes up into groups to make their
own presentations I have always found it a good idea to give
them a handout with some useful websites on for resources or to
put a folder on the school network with some pictures, graphs
and diagram that they can import into their presentations.
Like
everybody else in the teaching profession, I often find myself
over stretched and constantly trying to keep up with the next
initiative.
Rightly or wrongly, I took the decision a few years ago
to concentrate on ICT rather than taking students out on field
trips.
I have always found the organisation and financing of
school trips to be a nerve racking experience that rarely
justifies the time and effort that I have put into the
preparation.
Ofsted have occasionally made me feel guilty about it as
the area that I teach in is rich in both medieval and industrial
historical sites.
However,
47% of my students receive free school meals and very few
can afford to pay the voluntary contributions that are necessary
to finance the trips.
Fortunately,
PowerPoint and my own personal camcorder have come to the
rescue.
I now use PowerPoint as a medium to bring the historical
sites to the classroom.
I have gone around sites like Conisbrough Castle and
filmed all the key bits and imported the film into my PowerPoint
slides.
As you can imagine the actual presentation is huge so I
have to run it from the school network with each student doing a
virtual tour from their own terminal, making notes as they go
along.
This saves an enormous amount of time and effort on my
part running around getting permission, organising buses and
getting 250 kids to fill in indemnity forms.
In
addition to the historical tours on the school network, students
can find all my PowerPoint presentations and those made by other
teachers posted on the school history web site, the school
network and the virtual learning environment.
They regularly use these presentations during their
AS/A and GCSE
revision lessons in the study centre.
This is a particularly useful backup lesson when AS Guru
or the GCSE Byte size web sites are running far too slow to be
of any practical use.
In
a sentence, if you can use Microsoft Word it will take you about
10 minutes to learn how to use PowerPoint.
If you want to learn a few clever tricks that your NOF
training has failed to teach you, then get the kids to show you
how they use PowerPoint next time you get a supervision for the
IT Department.
If
you are ever lucky enough to be given a laptop and a PowerPoint
projector, then make sure that you put in a bid for some extra
time not only for some training but some extra time to develop
some new resources.
|
Quick
links to 
