We Learned PP YaY!

PowerPoint Activities: We Did It!

My team ended up doing three different PowerPoint activities. We enjoyed working together in class. Every once in awhile my team member would say, “Ashley what do you think about this on the PowerPoint activity.” It was nice to be able to give feed back and also receive feedback. I can envision the future and I know that it is going to be so important to know how to work with others. I think of the slogan, “play nice” and I feel each group project I do in class teaches me how to work well with others. I have also figured out that it makes work ten times easier with the help of other people. Now I would tell others that they would be almost “stupid,” not to take the help from other people. I see myself getting together with my future seventh grade co-workers and putting together PowerPoint activities. I envision each one of my co-workers including myself taking turns putting together PowerPoint activities based on what were learning at the time.
My group noticed how many different PowerPoint activities we were able to choose from in the book. We choose to do comic comma activity and the two others were both printable activities. Our intentions were to have one that was hands on and the other that was more for visual learners. This is the importance of PowerPoint activities: is gives many types of learners several chances to learn. If students do not learn from one PowerPoint activity, they can learn from another type. As teachers, it is important that we never throw out our options and computers make this possible. There is a never-ending amount of options. As I have been studying, I have come to a conclusion that I believe it takes computer activities to be a better teacher. I want to be that better teacher and though I sometimes struggle with computers, I will learn because I care about my future students.
My group finished our PowerPoint activities in class. We were happy and excited as we looked at the finished project. One of my group member’s was impressed at the work I did on one of the activities. My group is very encouraging and that is what makes such a good group. I would like to teach my students about group work and also enlighten them on its greatness. I would want them to self-assess themselves as we do in our class after a group project. This activity made me think about many different ideas I would like to teach in my class.

Video: “How Not to Use PowerPoint”
The video was helpful in bringing my attention to common mistakes made while using PowerPoint. The first mistake people make is writing everything they want to say on their PowerPoint slides. This just makes everything boring. When I am a teacher I will make sure, I avoid cramming to much information by having note cards. This will help me teach PowerPoint activities in a way that my students will be able to learn. The video talks about how animation can become distraction to audiences. I am going to be a seventh grade English teacher and have realized how easily twelve years olds are distracted. I will definitely keep animation at a minimum and if I use it, I will have a reason. Another idea that the video talks about is how using to many bullet points can be distracting. Seventh graders need a lot of reiteration and I do not want to overwhelm them with to much information or bullet points. In realizing what we, as teachers should not do in PowerPoint we now know what we should do to better aid our students to learn.