PowerPoint

PowerPoint is an awesome tool for teaching.  I like the fact that it allows a teacher to have all of their notes already written down before the class begins.  Teachers that use PowerPoint save about fifteen minutes each class in writing down notes.  Great teachers always prepare for their classes.  Another feature that I like is that the teacher can control how quickly or slowly the slides are changed.  The best part of this piece of technology is that all the teachers of this generation grew up using this technology.  My classmates and I know more about this technology than teachers have ever before.  This is a great piece of technology that helps teacher prepare for and control the tempo of class. 

PowerPoint is also a great tool because it allows the user to make it into what they want it to be by having multiple backgrounds and the user can even create their own.  In addition, it allows the user to add as many slides as needed.  On these slides can be text, pictures, sound, videos, and many animations.  This is great because teaching style and methods have really changed over the past few years.  Instead of just lecturing and writing down notes for students teachers today are encouraged to show visual representations of problems.  PowerPoint really allows teachers to show the information in any format that they want. 

Another feature of PowerPoint that I think is great is that you can print the slides out as handouts.  This is great because students can reference the class notes anytime they want to.  This is a very effective way to use technology to enhance a teacher’s teaching ability and the way student’s learn.  This is a similar circumstance to the use of Webassign in my last post.  Students are always looking for something to reference when they get home to do schoolwork.  This represents another piece of technology that gives students something to reference.