PowerPointless or PowerFull
I once heard it said that powerpoint had become powerpointless in many classrooms. I have to confess that I too was getting a bit bored of it all, and was thinking surely it can do more for me in the class. Then I discovered custom animation and VBA for powerpoint! It has opened a whole new world of possibilities.
Imagine powerpoint reading to a student with learning challenges, the text on a powerpoint slide. Imagine powerpoint asking the student their name? Imagine powerpoint writing a file on your computer keeping a record of what kids have snwered in a powerpoint quiz! All is possible!
PowerPoint does have it’s uses and I think that there are alot of things you can do with that not everyone knows about.
I have started to use Inspiration as a presentation tool. Have you heard of it or used it?
It is a mind mapping tool in its simplist form but once you start getting into it there are so many more ways it can be utilised in education. We used it to have the pupils present their arguments in a Project Based Learning task.
I have used Inspiration a little, but only really scratching the surface. Most of my time recently seems to go on management related issues rather than development or exploration of software. The little exploration I do has focused more on what I would term core software - the software that is available to every user in the school where I work. If you have some examples of “cool” inspiration files you have used, or your pupils have created, I would love to see them!
Struan
I like the way you can present using websites on tabs, in the same way as John used yesterday. It means that if people ask good questions you’re not restricted to carrying on with what was pre-prepared. I know you can jump to slides in PowerPoint, but if you’ve not used words or titles it can be tricky remembering which number to jump to.
Just my tuppence worth