Teaching and Powerpoint

I often use PowerPoint in my classroom, not every day, but often enough. I like to show pictures, diagrams and charts, especially in color. I dislike displaying large amounts of text. I find that the pictures go over very well, as long as they are large and interesting. Text tends to be small and not as entertaing - I try to keep it to one word or at most, one line.

One thing that has led me away from PowerPoint is the fact that I now have a Smartboard. This makes using Notebook more attractive than using PowerPoint. I know that I can write on PowerPoint slides with the Smartboard, but I can also convert the ppt into Notebook slides and use additional interactive features in the Notebook software. That has recently been my preference.

My goal with PowerPoint this year is to have my senior elective class create PowerPoint presentations to teach a topic to the class. I'm thinking that they can spend time researching via webquests, and then present their findings to the class in the form of a PowerPoint. It would be a light "teaching" week, and it will give the kids a chance to be creative. (That class is very creative.)

One thing that I found interesting in today's class is how we got a chance to practice presenting PowerPoint presentations. I feel that having my students practice presenting a "fake" presentation before their "real" presentation might make them more confident. I will definitely use this idea before starting student presentations.