PROS AND CONS OF PRESENTATION SOFTWARE

PowerPoint can effectively enhance your presentations if you do it the right way. Don’t have so many words on the slides, and don’t just read your slides (the audience can do this themselves). Try to use more images because these will stick in people’s minds more than a bunch of words. People on average are more visual learners too, which is another reason to use images. Use real images instead of clip art. The PowerPoint shouldn’t be the lesson. PowerPoint presentations shouldn’t last more than 20 minutes (or if you’re using the PowerPoint for the whole lecture, break it up and do other things during the lesson so that students aren’t just sitting there staring at slides the whole time).

When students are creating presentations, make sure they know the basics of using technology so that they can complete the assignment effectively/correctly. From here students can use their own creativity to come up with ideas on doing the assignment.

PowerPoint doesn’t just have to be for lessons. For example, it can be used to create quizzes, allowing all the students to get involved.

One problem with this discussion is it seemed like everyone was saying the same thing about PowerPoint (what to do and what not to do). I’m glad however that some people tried to make their posts a little more original by sharing experiences of what they’ve done when using PowerPoint. I also liked how they shared presentations they’ve witnessed that were good or bad and why.