PowerPoints in the Classroom

I very much enjoyed all of the presentations that were shown today. I really liked Scott's presentation, as it showed pieces of his life but also what he wanted to accomplish in his future classroom. I wish that I had thought of that idea! He was able to incorporate introduction and class values in one. If I make a PowerPoint for a first day in a future classroom, that is what I will do.

I really enjoyed the pictures that people featured in their presentations. In Josh's presentation, I liked how his slides of pictures had very little text and he talked about every single picture and how it related to him growing up. I loved the "I Love Lucy" clip that Nicole showed. I haven't seen that show in a very long time and it was fun to relate back to the memory of watching that show with my mom. I also enjoyed the clip that Brookes showed of her band playing a song. it is always neat to see people doing something they really like to do. She likes to play music and it was fun to see her in her element.

The least engaging thing from the presentations was the large amounts of text. I prefer slides that have a small amount of text and lots of pictures or video. Although some people had slides with a lot of text, they were able to use it effectively and did not read every single stat.

After watching everyone else's presentations, I wish that I would have incorporated more of my education beliefs and values into the presentation. Ryan mentioned his in the presentation, about how he believed that education is the tool that can fix the world! My presentation focused only on myself up to this point in history. Next time, I would like to put in goals and ideas for the future.

I think that PowerPoint can be useful in certain situations, but I do not really like using it. This may be because I have seen WAY too many poorly done PowerPoints where the creator does not branch away from the slides and instead uses it as a crutch. If a PowerPoint is used to supplement a lesson rather than provide all of the information, I think it can be useful in the classroom. One good thing about using PowerPoint is that the information/lecture can be stored for future lessons. Once it is prepared, it can be used over and over. A bad thing about PowerPoint is that they can often lose a class rather than engage one. By working with the PowerPoint, a teacher can use technology and their own expertise to capture their students' attention.