Why Use PowerPoint as a Hands On Activity in The Classroom?
Hear from students why they view PowerPoint as an important tool in their learning. This short student produced video, created by students in Kilmer Middle School in Fairfax County Virginia, describes their perspectives on how they engage, learn and enjoy working with electronic presentations. The program is aimed at teachers and their students and outlines various reasons why a PowerPoint presentation assignment can improve certain projects.. Specific tips on what to do when making a presentation assignment using PowerPoint are given, as well as general suggestions to help you get started.
This video ( Real | Windows Media | Flash ) was produced by a group of middle school students as a part of a service learning project. They used a small digital video camera and lavalier microphone to capture the audio and video. Still photo images and PowerPoint slides were also used in the production. The video was edited using Adobe Premiere Pro. The project was coordinated through a contact with a producer at Nortel LearniT who provided guidance and feedback on the project. All of the students who appear in the video have executed parental consent forms to permit their on-camera participation. All other images are from royalty free online photo collections. For more information on how teachers and students can create their own digital videos for their teaching and learning, be sure to see our tutorials on Video Production.
Research has shown that students retain more information and can apply it through thinking critically when they have the opportunity to interact with it through project based learning experiences. PowerPoint is a good tool to empower your students to use in activities that allow them to combine the use of their exploration, research, production and presentation skills within a creative application.
Nortel LearniT provides a full-set of tools to help teachers and students build their PowerPoint skills and be confident in its use as a powerful tool to support core subject learning. The PowerPoint Presentations technology tutorials provide a step-by-step approach to learn the various features and functions of the application, and includes a hands-on project to walk teachers or their students through an initial use of PowerPoint. These short video tutorials are accompanied with our interactive enhanced information format to reinforce key learning points.
As teachers consider how to integrate PowerPoint into their specific assignments, they can take advantage of our large repository of state standards aligned lesson plans. These lesson plans span a wide range of core subjects (e.g. Math, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, etc.) and can be downloaded and customized. The six sections in all of our Lesson Plans provide a virtual road map to help teachers and students get started using PowerPoint as a hands on project tool quickly and easily.
To further help support using PowerPoint in hands on activities in core subject instruction, Nortel LearniT provides other tools and links to valuable resources through our Resources and Best Practices collection.
When teachers have successfully used PowerPoint Presentations as a part of their instruction, we want to hear from them! We believe the best way for other teachers and students to learn and grow in their 21st century skills is to see how others are using tools like PowerPoint in their teaching and learning. Please drop us a note and consider sharing your lesson plan (or if you used one of ours let us know how it worked) and the projects that were created through its use. Contact Us or send us an email at: staff@nortellearnit.org.
So as our student producers asked “Why aren’t you using PowerPoint in your teaching or learning”?