Blog #6 :)

Overall, I think that I did a good job on my PowerPoint 1 assignment. First of all, my grammar and spelling are correct, and I used punctuation appropriate for a bulleted presentation. The content of my Powerpoint is comprehensive; it provides main ideas with important details, and my speaker's notes complement the slides well. The presentation is organized and orderly, and it has a menu right after the title page. The Powerpoint has all of the pictures, animations, and other details listed in the directions. It is visually pleasing and has an organized yet interesting color scheme. The pictures included allow students to picture in their minds the topics that are being discussed.

There are lots of ways to use peripherals and non-computer audio-visual technologies in the classroom. For example, I once had a teacher play a recording of the song "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel in my history class because the song gives an overview of American history that we were studying. Tangible examples are helpful as well; for instance, if I were teaching a lesson on different types of rocks, I could pass around an example of each type of rock so that the students would be able to observe the rocks themselves and remember them.

In the past week, I've become a lot better at PowerPoint. I know that this will help me a lot in my future teaching career. I believe that PowerPoints can be much more effective than an old-fashioned chalk board or overhead. PowerPoints, first of all, can be more interactive; the animation, hyperlinks, and other assets are examples of this. In addition, the fonts, colors, and layouts that you can choose from make a Powerpoint more interesting than a chalkboard. On the flip side, PowerPoints can also be used as an assignment for students. For instance, I could give students a group assignment in which they much create and present a PowerPoint on a certain topic. This would be useful because it would force the students to think deeply about the topic, become familiar with the PowerPoint program, and practice their speaking skills.

http://www.seventeen.com/

This website definitely orients users; the homepage has the title in big and bright font, and there are lots of tabs. The text is justified correctly. Other than the advertisements which don't count, all of the text is left justified. The web page does not limit the type styles very well because there are more than three styles. However, it is not so distracting as to make the page very difficult to read. This site overuses color a little bit, but an intended color scheme of pink and silver is evident. The text is certainly enhanced with graphics- there are lots of pictures! The site's design indicates its knowledge of its audience; the page's girly and colorful look would attract teen and pre-teen girls.

I feel that presentation software has huge advantages in the K-12 classroom. It is much more affective at gaining and holding students' interest than an old-fashioned blackboard is, and it provides teachers with many more options. For example, in presentation software, teachers can include pictures and sound effects to make their lessons more interesting. There are also disadvantages, though, to presentation software. For example, if for some reason the equipment is not working properly when a teacher is trying to present a lesson, he or she must quickly be able to come up with a plan B. Also, there are difficulties when introducing students to presentation software, i.e. teaching them how to use it. For instance, not all students will be familiar with computers. Also, the teacher must be sure to censor what students are doing while on the computers.

I would assign a project in which the students would have to create their own PowerPoint about a famous psychologist. In order to help students remember what they learned, each student would have to include a flowchart detailing the events in the psychologist's life and/or his work. This would also be helpful in getting students to understand the information as they would have to be able to grasp the relationships between the pieces of information that they collect. This flowchart would certainly also help students apply the information they learn because it would help them organize the information prior to building the PowerPoint. The students would eventually have to evaluate the work of their fellow classmates; this would expand their knowledge of psychologists by reading about the different psychologists other students chose. It would also let them see the different ideas that other students put in their PowerPoint's, like different flowchart styles or different factual organization. In addition, having students evaluate each other's work would ensure that each student receive constructive criticism from his peers. Finally, the main point of the project would be to create an organized, working PowerPoint about their psychologist. Doing this would allow the students to express their own creativity.

Concept Map :)