First, though, here’s Don McMillan explaining some of the REALLY bad ways people use Powerpoint:

5 quick tips if you MUST use Powerpoint…

1. Never use a font size smaller than 24pt. If you have a large classroom, you may need to go even bigger than this. Stand at the back and check!
2. Limit the number of words you have per slide. Don’t use them as an aid to remind you what to say. They should enhance what you are talking about, not repeat it! A great way is to limit yourself to 5 words and 5 bullet points. Alternatively, just use an image to represent your idea/concept/instruction.
3. Find graphics that represent things you do frequently in lessons (perhaps from clipart) and always use these when doing a similar activity. For example, a pen writing for when it’s time to start work or two people talking for discussion/group work. These help reinforce good habits and aid classroom management.
4. Use contrasting colours. The easiest way to do this is to choose an option from the ‘Slide Design’ menu. Otherwise, remind yourself of the colour wheel.
5. Limit the number of different slide transitions in a presentation. One or two is classy, lots of different ones looks unprofessional.

Beyond Powerpoint…

There are lots of different tools that do a similar job to Powerpoint. For example, Keynote on the Mac and OpenOffice.org Impress (all platforms). But you don’t want to simply replicate Powerpoint’s functionality, you want to move beyond it.

Method 1 – Online presentations

Creating presentations on, or uploading presentations to, the Internet can be extremely useful. Not only does it give you access to better visual effects than Powerpoint can offer, but it makes them readily available to your students outside the lesson. The following three slides are taken from part of the very first lesson I had with Year 7 this academic year:

This is the same presentation when I uploaded it to Google Docs and tinkered slightly:

And here it is in the wonderful SlideRocket after using some of its functionality:

Zoho Show is another option. All of these are completely free or have a free basic option. I’d recommend Google Docs if you’d like to collaborate (or students to collaborate) on presentations and SlideRocket for fancy effects. The latter has a desktop version, although you have to upgrade your account to a paid-for version to be able to download it. Of course, if you just want to make your presentations available online, you could use SlideShare…

Method 2 – Add interactive elements

• Need to show some statistics and figures? Try richchartlive.com!
• Add a short video clip to your presentation. Find it on YouTube, or another video-sharing site. Download and convert it (in this case to MOV or WMV format) via Zamzar.com. There’s an elearnr guide on how to do this here.
• The PicLens plugin for Powerpoint 2007 means you’re not restricted to a linear presentation – and it looks cool! (see below)

Method 3 – Use a completely different approach

Ask yourself, “do I really need to use a Powerpoint-style format?”. If the answer is “perhaps not!” then check out some of these suggestions:

• Glogster – we’ve already been through glogs on elearnr. They are a great, visual way to present as you can embed videos, audio and images quickly and easily.
• Mindmap – why not demonstrate good practice and create a mindmap to present ideas? Students can learn organizational skills from this, and there are a number of collaborative mindmapping sites, including MindMeister, bubbl.us, Mindomo and Mind42.
• Wiki – a wiki is a collaborative website. It’s also a great place to embed content from other websites and therefore a useful presentational tool. Your audience (i.e. students or other teachers) can also add their ideas and thoughts to it at a later date – if you want them to! I like Wikispaces, but it doesn’t seem to play nicely with our school network. I’d recommend, therefore, Google Sites, Wetpaint and PBwiki. I use Google Sites to run learning.mrbelshaw.co.uk

Finally…

Keep up-to-date with new ways and ideas for presenting ideas, concepts and content. The following are websites that can help:

• Dennis Kennedy – 10 Tips to Improve Your Presentations with Powerpoint
• Presentation-Pointers.com
• BeyondBulletPoints.com
• PresentersUniversity.com – Courses

Have YOU got any tips to share about good/bad practice when using Powerpoint?

As befits Google Earth, the following are some ideas from educators around the world as to how to use the program effectively.

Tom Barrett has created a Google Presentation to which other educators have contributed. Check it out here:

Further Links:

• gMapExplorer (nifty alternative to Google Earth, but needs browser plugin installed first!)
• Google Earth Goods wiki
• Google Earth lessons
• Google UK Schools
• Digital Geography – Google Earth posts
• Google Earth blog
• Ogle Earth
• Google Earth mobile (e.g. iPhone)
• Jim F’s Google Earth Netvibes page
• Google – Geo Education: classroom ideas

Know any other useful links not in the guide or above? Please share them!

Fortunately, Glogster, the place to go if you want to create a glog, has an education version. This means that you can set up glogs on your students’ behalf if you wish – although they can set up their own. Using Glogster is very straightforward and produces fantastic results you can either leave online or print out.

Here’s how to get started:

You can check out a couple of my GCSE History students’ glogs here and here.

1. Storing links to useful websites and web applications to access wherever I am.
2. Discovering new resources that other educators have recommended.
3. Creating a repository of useful links for a particular purpose (e.g. a department or for pupils on a certain course)

There are many more features of del.icio.us than I’ve had chance to explore in this session. For information about some of these, check out this slideshow from Jon Hoff:

There are many ways to download videos from YouTube, one of the easiest being to use a website such as Zamzar. The following screencast demonstrates how to do this. It is hosted at Edublogs.tv, so should remain unblocked by most school networks!

Direct link to screencast

If, for some reason, Zamzar fails to work, the following websites do the job in a similar way:

• Hey!Watch
• KissYouTube
  
• Media Converter
  
• Vixy

Most of these converters support more than just YouTube – so try them with other video-sharing websites!

***UPDATE*** A colleague suggested that a handout might make things easier than trying to follow an online video. I’ve put one together that you can download below:

How to find and download YouTube videos for use in the classroom (4.9MB)

View a larger version here. Do get in touch with Tom if you’ve got another tip you can share!