Week Four - Presentation Programs

This week in lesson four we learned about using presentation programs as teaching tools. Presentation programs like Microsoft’s PowerPoint can be invaluable aids to teachers. Presentation programs like PowerPoint consist of one or of a series of slides; each of these slides can contain pictures, video, text and audio. These programs can even replace traditional teaching tools like blackboards, white boards and overhead projectors.

The International Society for Technology in Education established the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS *T) and Performance Indicators for Teachers. Presentation programs can help meet the second standard Design and Develop Digital-Age Learning Experiences and Assessments; teachers design, develop, and evaluate authentic learning experiences and assessment incorporating contemporary tools and resources to maximize content learning in context and to develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes identified in the NETS*S.  Presentation programs allow teachers to design, develop and even evaluate learning experiences using technology.

I made a PowerPoint presentation about the life-cycle of a Monarch butterfly to show to the kids that I nanny. They are ages seven, five and almost three. I made the presentation short, simple and included lots of pictures.

The items in my presentation that I’m the proudest of are the graphics.  I feel like I found some great pictures to represent the life cycle of a Monarch butterfly in a simple, easy to grasp way.

If I was to re-do my presentation I would do better at keeping the concept of simplicity in mind. I feel that some of the wording I used provided a little too much information at times. Like one of the articles from the reading this week said, you have to use presentations as a teaching tool and not use them to teach for you. I used the Monarch presentation more to teach for me rather than just as a tool.

The kids responded well to the presentation that I made for them; they wanted to linger over the pictures, they were inquisitive and asked lots of questions.  After watching the presentation the kids were very interested in finding an egg or a baby caterpillar to try to watch the life cycle progress for themselves. Even though there changes that could have been made, I think that overall the presentation was a success.

At the bottom of the page I have posted a YouTube link to the PowerPoint I made on the life cycle of a Monarch butterfly, the video is a little small but it seeing it will help illustrate my points.