Do you use PowerPoint presentations in your classroom? Educators across the world use a variety of multimedia tools in their classroom. Although, advancement in technology has allowed for more sophisticated and varied forms of multimedia intervention, PowerPoint presentations remain a huge favourite for three main reasons.
Firstly, it is a widely accepted, popular, and recognized presentation format. Almost everybody is familiar with PowerPoint presentations whether they may or may not be adept at creating them. There are also a lot of education themed free PowerPoint templates to help you get started.
Secondly, it is uncomplicated. PowerPoint has many advanced features that can create astonishing presentation designs and effects. They are also easy to use without the need for technical or programming expertise. Its user friendly interface allows even beginners to create great PowerPoint presentations. The new Microsoft PowerPoint 2010 has a Broadcast Slide Show feature. Now, you no longer need to upload your presentations to another provider in order to share. You can share it live right from your desktop within PowerPoint. Exporting your presentation is also made easier with added in-built features for PDF and video conversion capabilities.
Thirdly, they appeal to the audience providing them interaction beyond just the speaker and his words. Especially so, when the topic needs graphical representations. Adding images and graphics is easy. You can even create custom graphics using PowerPoint’s images and graphics tools. The SmartArt graphics are a boon. With a lot of variety in styles, they can not only liven up your content but removes the cumbersome tasks of piecing together shapes and other graphics to get the effect you want. Charts are also a hugely popular and effective way to depict data instead of boring texts and numbers that hardly anyone has time to look through. A smartly created chart clearly draws the audience and makes numbers and data more realistic, more understandable.
What if, you were teaching a biology class and as the teacher, you had to explain the digestive system without any pictures? Imagine having to describe everything using words alone. Not a situation you would want to find yourself in. For that matter, take the case of teaching on any other topic. Now, if you had a graphical representation of the digestive tract, explaining the process would be much easier. Can you imagine how much more visual appeal and interest it would generate if you used a PowerPoint presentation with animations to depict the process? You get the picture! Students would be able to vividly capture whatever you teach them.
You can also create quizzes, tests, and simple interactive games on PowerPoint and use it in your classroom. These can be used in group presentation settings or even administered individually through Computer Based Teaching or web based learning interventions. No more paper-you can do your bit to help the environment cause. What about handouts for the students? Well, you can use the Notes feature. You can directly print out notes for yourself as well your students, if required.
There’s a whole world of possibilities that you can do with PowerPoint to make learning more interactive in your classroom. Start by downloading any one of the hundreds of free PowerPoint templates available and unleash your creativity.
Author Resource:-
Jouni Paavilainen is an internationally recognized expert on Internet technologies, strategies and business models and also a founder of http://www.powerpoint1.net, the biggest online store for Microsoft PowerPoint Templates. http://powerpoint1.net offers a wide range of free PowerPoint templates. Download Now!