PowerPoints

PowerPoint is a very powerful presentations software package.  PowerPoint has a multitude of features which could make it difficult to use for younger or less technologically skilled students.  I personally am a bit over PowerPoint as it was used extensively with training in my past accounting roles, and with very little creativity.  Most of these presentations were just a matter of loading you up with words.

Young students would be able to use the basic features of PowerPoint to create presentations.  I found it helpful to use the tutorial suggestions to plan my presentation in Word and then load that document in to PowerPoint to start the actual presentation.  It was easy to put in images, sound and text .  But the phasing in of points on slides, known as transitions, requires a bit more skill.

This is a link to my basic presentation. 

Making a PowerPoint presentation interactive takes a bit more effort than a basic presentation.  The process of creating storyboard in Word, then an outline, and then converting to PowerPoint is a well-structured process and makes the presentation more effective.   I liked the addition of Mouse Mischief which would enable all students to be involved in the presentation.

This would be useful with brainstorming and planning at the start of activities and would allow all students to collaboratively work.  Further through the process they could then break in to smaller groups or work on individual projects for assessment.