Week 4

Since I have never really put things out on any sort of website (I find websites my technological weakness) I was interested to know that you can put PowerPoint presentations right on to a webpage. I have never tried this before, but the article stated that you just had to save the document as an HTML. I never would have thought it would have been that easy. In addition to what I have learned, I think that it’s important that teachers are not the only ones with their hands on PowerPoint. Even young students can use PowerPoint at a very basic level and letting kids make their own presentations gives them more responsibility and lets them use technology. It also helps them become used to getting up and talking in front of people.

I am not currently teaching and decided to do a PowerPoint presentation for 2 of my nieces. They are 5 and 6 and are currently learning their letters and some small words. While I know this isn’t typically how presentations are used I thought it would be a good way for them to be able to look at the words on a screen while we were reading them. I am mostly proud of the fact that they both really seemed to be interested in the presentation. I would fly in different letters and we would spend time saying the sound for each letter and then say the word. It felt like a game to them and they were really getting in to it. They wanted to make sure that they were saying the right sounds and would sometimes even try to guess the words before the letters flew in. If I did the presentation again, I would obviously have to change it up because it would be too easy for most of the kids in upper grades. I liked that it wasn’t exactly a “presentation” but more of a tool to allow  students to participate. If I was trying to teach brand new material though, I would not have as much participation and I would talk about each slide more. Also, if I was doing it again I might put in definitions. That way the kids would not only be able to learn the words, but could also be sure we know what these words mean. For that age, maybe I would just use a picture of the word just to make sure they associate the word with the proper definition. Like I said earlier, the kids did respond well to doing this because it was like a game. I think at that age it is important to use PowerPoint in a way that really gets the students to participate otherwise they would have lost interest in just a few minutes.