Saturday, February 15, 2014

Week 6 Busy Refining Project and PowerPointing!



It may sound weird that I have been busy working on refining my final project for this Webskill and on an Interactive Powerpoint since Wednesday this week whereas nothing has been done well. Based on what was done last week, the project seems to be unsatisfactory for there were details I did not get into. Now, I am questioning myself whether to continue what I have done or to restart the Webquest I began the implementation of, last week. The thing is that my final project and Webquest are dependent on each other. Nevertheless, I keep faith that "Everything's gonna be all right!"; I am sometimes a Bob Marley follower to a certain extent.

Regarding the Powerpoint task of this week, I was overwhelmed by its interactive side since it was a little challenging for me. For that, I really need your support by giving me tips and comment on how I can enhance the way I design my Interactice Powerpoint lesson, which is now in our class's Wiki. I still struggle to use Powerpoint and am far from being professional in designing lessons using this tool, because the only thing  I often do with Powerpoint is photo slides. I sometimes tell students to use Powerpoint for their oral presentations whereas their teacher is not an expert in it. I entirely agree with the author of The Journal's article entitled "Creating an Interactive PowerPoint Lesson for the Classroom", found at http://thejournal.com/Articles/2000/08/01/Creating-an-Interactive-PowerPoint-lesson-for-the-classroom/, saying that "If students use technology to learn, teachers should use the same technology to teach". That is the right thing to do! What do you think?

To conclude, this week's experience has put myself in the shoes of my students as a beginning learner for I had to learn everything about Powerpoint this time. I understand how difficult it is for our students to be introduced something new because "new" means "unkown"; and "unknown" is tantamount to "difficult".

Looking forward to your comments and thoughts.

Thanks for reading me. 

1 comment:

  1. Hi Manda,

    Some of us have suffered much to come up with a semi-finished PowerPoint product. I have never created nor used one in my class before. The discussion you launched on Thursday on the PowerPoint discussion board was cathartic to me. I had already been thinking over my powerpoint miseries. It was then that I started groping for tutorials to learn the basics. As I said in my blog, I have not been so tense and spent so much time on a task.
    I am glad you have been able to come to a final decision in your 2nd week 6 blog for the project. Indecision is so hard to manage. The main thing is the creation of a powerpoint lesson; learning is underway and we shall improve things as we move on.

    "If students use technology to learn, teachers should use the same technology to teach". This saying is so true! Sometimes I feel ashamed when my students help me with some petty technical tips. Some are smart at technology. Maybe this experience would make us more humble and try to feel how some students shoes are so tight for them to wear.
    Best of courage, Manda.

    Foli.

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