WEEK 7 REFLECTION
This week was very fruitful for me as well as challenging.
Youtube did not play well because of slow Internet connection and I had to ask my friends to download for me, what they did and sent me vie Skype.
But it was a half of the problem as my computer did not play .flv format and I had to convert into another format to watch Jeopardy tutorial.
But untill I did it I experimented and could manage at last with Jeopardy game.
Here they are- 2 Jeopardy activities , 1 USA review, second one - Festival , what I was going to implement into my project.
The first one I did using the ready template with hyperlinks inserted into each slide. As to Festival PPT I was really mine although it is very simple.
No I know how to generate this game and other games of this kind.
Another important point is choosing a partner for the project work.
I offered Hamid to work together and he kindly agreed. I believe this tandem will be useful for both us.
As to the discussion for this week "Interactive Power Point" was more important for me personally and I gain a lot reading suggested links.
I have known that Power Point has a lot of possibilities but never was sure that a teacher like me can do a kind of programming on it (creating hyperlinks and inserting animated images would be some kind of programming). I was just user of ready made templates. For example, for Jeopardy game I downloaded Jeopardy game templates and just fill them in. And of course, it caused some discomfort, because you would have to adjust to either 5 or 6 sections and select questions as I wouldn't find a Jeopardy with 3 categories.
The similar game is "Who Wants to be a millionaire" – it also has a template where you can insert your questions and hyperlinks are ready.
Another game of this type is a square game, Wheel of Fortune I have not exploited them yet, but the principle of these games are the same and once we'll learn how to operate and create this Jeopardy game ourselves we'll be able to make other games as well.
There are plenty of different games and templates using PPT on the following sites like 20 questions, Guess the covered word:
http://teach.fcps.net/trt14/Power%20Point%20Games/power_point_games.htm
http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/ppt-games/
As to the design of the Power Point presentations I received a lot from the article "Power Point Tips" regarding what font to use for an appropriate audience, contrasting font and background colour. I will carefully use specialized fonts even they are too attractive as everybody should read the text in PPT. 3 kind of fonts is optimal to combine variety and consistency. Now I know what Master Slide helps you because before reading I changed each headline and body text of each slide by myself.
Text size is important as you intend your students sitting far from the LCD could read texts. All capital letters are more difficult to read.
After I generated my Jeopardy game I read about caution using red. I have learned from my mistake.
As Mohamed I like 7 and 7 rule legibility. Hot colors are bad for background. And we have to avoid sub-headings and use separate slide instead.
The goal of using images is to draw attention and to describe, but we should avoid it where it is not necessary (Before I inserted images just for fun because I found them on-line and wanted to show how cool it was ?).
"Presenting With Power Point " article describes best practices in PPT, where the most important step is determining goals and purpose of handouts. I attended workshops where everything was written in the slides and distributed to participants and there wasn't interesting to listen to the lecturer because he was "parroting" his PPT. There is no place and case for guessing, anticipating and implying.
Students should concentrate on you rather on your slides.
And another thing – PPT is most effective as a visual accompaniment to the SPOKEN word. For this reason a blank screen is useful.
Power Point possibilities let you meet each of three learning styles – photos, sounds, animated images e t.c.
Ctrl-L and Ctrl-A key combinations to hide and display mouse pointer are helpful to remember in order not to disturb your students from the lecture.
Good advice is to rehearse the process with PPT before the lecture to anticipate any glitches. Moreover while rehearsing you might find that you missed some info to stress on.
Even you have not include in your presentation a blank slide but you need it you may press B to black out the screen, which will play the role of the blank slide.
In her post Zuleyka told that Power Point is inevitable tool for visual and auditory skill. I just want to add that it can be a kinesthetic tool as well when student participate in the presentation or generate it by themselves..
Hyperlinks help you to save both your time and save minimize the size of the presentation.
Youtube did not play well because of slow Internet connection and I had to ask my friends to download for me, what they did and sent me vie Skype.
But it was a half of the problem as my computer did not play .flv format and I had to convert into another format to watch Jeopardy tutorial.
But untill I did it I experimented and could manage at last with Jeopardy game.
Here they are- 2 Jeopardy activities , 1 USA review, second one - Festival , what I was going to implement into my project.
The first one I did using the ready template with hyperlinks inserted into each slide. As to Festival PPT I was really mine although it is very simple.
No I know how to generate this game and other games of this kind.
Another important point is choosing a partner for the project work.
I offered Hamid to work together and he kindly agreed. I believe this tandem will be useful for both us.
As to the discussion for this week "Interactive Power Point" was more important for me personally and I gain a lot reading suggested links.
I have known that Power Point has a lot of possibilities but never was sure that a teacher like me can do a kind of programming on it (creating hyperlinks and inserting animated images would be some kind of programming). I was just user of ready made templates. For example, for Jeopardy game I downloaded Jeopardy game templates and just fill them in. And of course, it caused some discomfort, because you would have to adjust to either 5 or 6 sections and select questions as I wouldn't find a Jeopardy with 3 categories.
The similar game is "Who Wants to be a millionaire" – it also has a template where you can insert your questions and hyperlinks are ready.
Another game of this type is a square game, Wheel of Fortune I have not exploited them yet, but the principle of these games are the same and once we'll learn how to operate and create this Jeopardy game ourselves we'll be able to make other games as well.
There are plenty of different games and templates using PPT on the following sites like 20 questions, Guess the covered word:
http://teach.fcps.net/trt14/Power%20Point%20Games/power_point_games.htm
http://jc-schools.net/tutorials/ppt-games/
As to the design of the Power Point presentations I received a lot from the article "Power Point Tips" regarding what font to use for an appropriate audience, contrasting font and background colour. I will carefully use specialized fonts even they are too attractive as everybody should read the text in PPT. 3 kind of fonts is optimal to combine variety and consistency. Now I know what Master Slide helps you because before reading I changed each headline and body text of each slide by myself.
Text size is important as you intend your students sitting far from the LCD could read texts. All capital letters are more difficult to read.
After I generated my Jeopardy game I read about caution using red. I have learned from my mistake.
As Mohamed I like 7 and 7 rule legibility. Hot colors are bad for background. And we have to avoid sub-headings and use separate slide instead.
The goal of using images is to draw attention and to describe, but we should avoid it where it is not necessary (Before I inserted images just for fun because I found them on-line and wanted to show how cool it was ?).
"Presenting With Power Point " article describes best practices in PPT, where the most important step is determining goals and purpose of handouts. I attended workshops where everything was written in the slides and distributed to participants and there wasn't interesting to listen to the lecturer because he was "parroting" his PPT. There is no place and case for guessing, anticipating and implying.
Students should concentrate on you rather on your slides.
And another thing – PPT is most effective as a visual accompaniment to the SPOKEN word. For this reason a blank screen is useful.
Power Point possibilities let you meet each of three learning styles – photos, sounds, animated images e t.c.
Ctrl-L and Ctrl-A key combinations to hide and display mouse pointer are helpful to remember in order not to disturb your students from the lecture.
Good advice is to rehearse the process with PPT before the lecture to anticipate any glitches. Moreover while rehearsing you might find that you missed some info to stress on.
Even you have not include in your presentation a blank slide but you need it you may press B to black out the screen, which will play the role of the blank slide.
In her post Zuleyka told that Power Point is inevitable tool for visual and auditory skill. I just want to add that it can be a kinesthetic tool as well when student participate in the presentation or generate it by themselves..
Hyperlinks help you to save both your time and save minimize the size of the presentation.
Dear Nilufar,
ReplyDeleteyou are right when you say that students should concentrate on us, not on our slides. They are nothing but a tool in our hands, and it depends on us to make them interactive. Otherwise, it's just another presentation, having nothing special, having nothing to keep in your mind.
I wish you all the best and good luck,
Nadina
Dear Nilufar,
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for the links provided!
I have been struggling to have my interactive PPT ready on time and this will help me a lot!
You are absolutely right when you name all the features we have to take into account when designing a PowerPoint interactive presentation. Even the font plays an important role!
Thanks for the advice of rehearsing before actually entering the class. That will definitely avoid problems, even technological ones!
Thanks for sharing
Eve
Dear all,
ReplyDeleteI see that the ineterst should be on what we want them to observe and consider. It is not necessary that I should always be the center of the interest. If I am there in front of them, it's just to orient guide them and make them focus on what is more important which might not be meat all. I think the hole job is to make them be intersted by other things. An interactive PPT should should cater for them and attract their motivation and interest. To achieve this, it should display a variety of techniques antools hand in hand with the interesting content of the lesson. If a technology doesn't achieve this goal, it is futile to use.
Keep the good work.
Hamid