Thursday, June 12, 2008

What did they really learn in class yesterday?

I taught a day long PowerPoint class yesterday. As is usual, the participants ran the gamut from very beginner to fairly advanced. The class is designed to start from the dead bottom beginning and work toward intermediate skills. However, I assured the advanced users that they would surely pick up some valuable tips or tricks along the way - at least I always do no matter how many classes I take on a topic.

As folks filed out at the end of the day, one of the advanced users stopped to tell me how much she had learned in class and how happy she was that she stayed. At the beginning of class she realized she was in the wrong class and considered leaving. I was thrilled, of course! Out of curiosity, I asked her what were a few of the things she learned about PowerPoint. She enthusiastically told me nothing - she already knew all that stuff. The golden nuggets came in between the PowerPoint instruction. She said the websites I talked about were exactly what she needed (I wish I could remember all of them), and the tips on presentation design had never occurred to her. During the break one of the other participants helped her with a completely unrelated technology problem - one that no one at her school could tackle. She wanted to know what was on the docket for tomorrow!

I'm still thrilled that it was time well spent for her. And, I promised her I would share one of the sites we played with called SlideShare . This is a free site where educators have put their PowerPoint presentations in order to access them from anywhere and to share them with other educators. Go have a look. Search a topic you generally work with - I bet you'll find something. Additionally, if you have a great presentation you use with your students - share!

Another site we talked about was PowerPoint in the Classroom, a campy little site full of instruction and tutorials for both 2003 and 2007.

Good Times!
Lee Anne