Saturday, September 15, 2007
Technology Issue
Technology is surfacing in the classroom in PowerPoint format. Teachers are beginning to teach lessons off of PowerPoint presentations. I believe this teaching style is suitable for high school students. Although kids today are growing up computer savvy, I believe their attention span and learning style are not developed to attend to such a lecture in middle school. A down fall to depending on PowerPoint presentations for lessons is that technology is never 100% reliable. Computers can break, a presentation can be lost, or a classroom may be not equipped to accommodate that teaching style.
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5 comments:
Annie, this is true. However, I think PowerPoint can be used selectively. In other words, teachers should not use for EVERYTHING but for some presentations that are appropriate. The presentation can be more than just text and bulleted lists - graphics and sounds will help get some student's attention which is sometimes helpful in middle school.
I agree with Annie also. I also agree with Bobbi. I know some teachers who do use power point for EVERYTHING and it is boring for both the students and staff at our school to just read slides and go over them one by one. Power point is good to use, but in moderation and with cool graphic and sounds.
sarah
Annie, I think this is a great issue to bring up. The Director of Technology in our district dislikes PowerPoint for the very reasons you have listed. She has even gone a step further in stating that students should not be instructed to create PowerPoint because it is so overused by teachers in their lessons and projects for students to create. A couple programs that our Director of Technology has mentioned to be more intriguing for students and teachers are Photo Story and Movie Maker. I think PowerPoint is a great program to capture students attention and is very easy to use, however with this digital age we must find new ways to engage our students because overusing one program will only cause burnout.
Annie, I agree with you. PowerPoint, I think, can be a fun way for students to learn off of to "spice things up" in a classroom, but everyday, especially for middle school, is too much. It requires too much attention, not any moving around, and all seems too scripted. If it is used as a treat, or made entertaining occasionally, I think only then will our kids like it.
I agree with you for a few reasons. First of all, one of the biggest downfalls to PowerPoint is that peopel tend to read exactly what the sldie says. It makes the audience feel as if the speaker views them as unable to read. Teh slides should be guidelines or an outline. Another reason I agree is that students often better off without a lot of the distractions that come with PowerPoint. They can take attention away from the intended content. One final reason is that students will tone out what the teacher is saying and focus entirely on the slides instead. PowerPoint should be an aide, not the teacher.
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