Using PowerPoint as a Teaching Media

A PowerPoint presentation is a presentation created using Microsoft PowerPoint software. The presentation is a collection of individual slides that contain information on a topic. PowerPoint presentations are commonly used in business meetings and for training and educational purposes.


Format

PowerPoint presentations usually begin with a title slide that may contain the name or the topic of the presentation and sometimes will contain the name(s) of the presenter(s). The title slide is followed by content slides that contain information usually in the form of text---often in the form of a bulleted list---and sometimes graphics. Examples of graphics that may be contained in a PowerPoint presentation include charts, graphs, diagrams, screenshots, photos, movies and animations. A final slide or group of slides is sometimes included to wrap up the presentation, for example "Conclusions," "References" or a slide with the text "Questions?".

Function

PowerPoint presentations are popular in business meetings, both face-to-face and teleconferenced. PowerPoint presentations are often used in business to present training material. Many college professors now use PowerPoint presentations for their lectures instead of writing information on the chalkboard or whiteboard before each class. PowerPoint presentations also are often used by students to give in-class presentations.

Software Information

PowerPoint is developed, manufactured, and marketed by Microsoft Corporation. It is bundled with some versions of the Microsoft Office suite and is also available for purchase as a stand-alone product. PowerPoint is available for both Windows and Mac OS platforms.

Features

PowerPoint software features and formatting options include a wizard that walks you through the presentation creation process. Design templates---prepackaged background designs and font styles that will be applied to all slides in a presentation---can be used, or you can create your own slide design if desired using a combination of layout arrangement, background color, text font and color, and extras such as call-out boxes, graphics (from clip art or from a file), photos, diagrams and movies. Sound can be added to a presentation from a PowerPoint library of sounds, from a saved music file, from a CD, or sound can be recorded using a microphone.
When viewing a presentation, slide progression can be manual, using the computer mouse or keyboard to progress to the next slide, or slides can be set up to progress after a specified length of time. Slide introductions and transitions can be added to the slides. For example "fade through black," "checkerboard across" or "random transition."


Viewing Presentations

PowerPoint presentations can be viewed on a computer on which PowerPoint software is installed. Alternatively, PowerPointViewer is available for free download from Microsoft's website for individual use. PowerPoint presentations can be viewed using PowerPointViewer, but cannot be created or edited.

Set Background Picture for a PowerPoint file in PowerPoint 2003
• Open/Create a PowerPoint file
• Choose one slide, Right Click, and then click Background


• Click on Pull-Down Menu, Choose the Fill Effects



• Choose the Picture tab at the top of the Fill Effects dialog box. Click on the Select Picture...button to locate the photo saved on your computer.


• Click on OK to add the picture to the slide background.
• Click on Apply to All or Apply button

Set Background Picture for a PowerPoint file in PowerPoint 2007

• Select the slide that you want to add a background picture to.
To select multiple slides, click a slide, and then press and hold CTRL while you click the other slides.
• On the Design tab, in the Background group, click Background Styles, and then click Format Background.


• Click Fill, and then click Picture or texture fill.
• Do one of the following:
o To insert a picture from a file, click File, and then locate and double-click
the picture that you want to insert.
o To paste a picture that you copied, click Clipboard.
o To use clip art (clip art: A single piece of ready-made art, often appearing
as a bitmap or a combination of drawn shapes.) as a background picture, click
Clip Art, and then in the Search text box, type a word or phrase that
describes the clip (clip: A single media file, including art, sound,
animation, or movies.) that you want, or type all or part of the file name of
the clip.

To include clip art that is available on Microsoft Office Online in your
search, select the Include content from Office Online check box, click Go,
and then click the clip to insert it.

• Do one of the following:
o To use the picture as a background for the slides that you selected, click
Close.
o To use the picture as a background for all of the slides in your
presentation, click Apply to All

Computer lecture presentations, using software such as Microsoft's PowerPoint, are becoming increasingly widely used in college classrooms throughout this country. Judging from the response in the classes that the teachers have been teaching, students are extremely enthusiastic about this type of technology. Many faculties appear to be equally satisfied, as evidenced by the fact that they are choosing to invest considerable amounts of time and effort into revising their courses.
Despite the rising popularity of presentation software, thus far there has been very little evidence that this technology can improve learning. This should not be surprising, inasmuch as the technologies have been used for a relatively short period of time, and it is not yet clear how to maximize their usefulness. It is probably true that learning to master the technology itself seems to be much easier than discovering the pedagogy that makes the best use of the technology for learning.
The new educational technology represents a special challenge to the current generation of college teachers. Traditionally, most college teachers have basically continued to teach the way they had been taught when they were students. As a result, change in teaching has been incremental at best. Now teachers are being called upon to learn how to teach in totally new ways. Although much has been learned about the learning process in the past decade, our understanding is still far from complete. For the time being, instructors must follow the development of educational theory, share the experiences of colleagues, and use student evaluations to determine what will work best in their classrooms.
This lack of hard knowledge is particularly prevalent in the use of images for instruction. Previously, few faculty had a convenient way to incorporate images into their lectures. Even those who used slides or videos may not have completely understood the best ways to use this visual material. Now presentation software, like PowerPoint, doesn't just allow for the creation of lecture presentations that are rich in images; it also brings together text and images in ways that have significant educational benefits.
Images are widely recognized to be powerful educational tools, and PowerPoint makes it easy to add visual material to lectures. All disciplines may not benefit equally from the enhanced use of images for lecture, but there are many situations where the synergy described here can be useful. Many professors like to include historical references in their lectures, but many students lack the background to fully understand the comment. My experience has been that adding appropriate images to the presentation can not only broaden the students' overal knowledge but can also establish cross-discipline relevancies, and thus produce strong reactions from students.
New tools require us to rethink our approach to the educational process. Even though no single teaching method, with or without technology, may be equally applicable to all educational situations, the new technologies, including the combination of PowerPoint with cooperative learning, open new possibilities for the educational process. The real challenge is not to learn the technology, but to find the pedagogies that use technology to give our students an improved learning environment.