The use of Powerpoint in classrooms debate
I know there is debate about powerpoint on twitter, but I am a passionate user of it. Breifly, here are my arguments:
- There is much less printing. This has the obvious benefit for ecological reasons. But it is also good for the teacher's time management, and also for the pace of a lesson (avoiding the time needed to hand out paper, and the inevitable time needed to stick the paper in the books).
- It forces me to be more concise with the information I present and so further pushes me to present my lessons and questions without surplus information that would further strain the working memory.
- I like presenting large images and having the capability to show parts of those images in steps and therefore focus attention, reducing extraneous load through dual coding.
- A final advantage is live editing; when a student doesn’t understand a question they tell me, and if I consider that it is because of the presentation of that question, or its wording, then I edit it immediately and get feedback from the students (do they understand it now?). Sometimes students offer other answers that are not on the mark scheme, but are equally valuable, so I can add it there and then (and avoid forgetting).
My lessons and questions evolve continually, and this helps a lot when you teach multiple classes in the same year group, or simply because we all have busy days and remembering to edit lessons later in the day is harder than doing it in the moment.