Presentations with Technology

To facilitate learning and help my students understand difficult concepts, I often develop PowerPoint presentation, or rely on informative websites.

The following items are examples of the implementation of presentation with technology in my classroom:

Cause and Consequence Websites

The second to last assignment for my Freshman Composition class is a Cause and Consequence paper. I asked my students to write about a current trend and explore its origins, or predict how it will change and impact our lives. In other words, the students were asked to write about the cause and/or the consequence of a current trend in our society.

To help my students recognize potential trends, I showed in class a collection of websites that exemplify current trends.

The websites included in this collection ranged from Ugly Betty's homepage to Apple's newest iPod site. I visited each site with my students, and we discussed how each site promoted an idea or a product that was rapidly seeping into our culture. As a group, we tried to determine how each trend got started, and attempted to predict the future of each trend.

Communicating Persuasively

This PowerPoint presentation allowed me to present a chapter on Argumentation to my Technical Writing students, who were at the time working on a complex project (a recommendation report). The brief, yet informative presentation provided an overview of the chapter while highlighting the most important concepts to remember.

I designed the slide show so that each line of information would appear individually. These pauses gave me time to elaborate on each point as needed, and to answer my students' questions throughout the presentation.

Comparison and Contrast

The Compare and Contrast presentation was an early experiment. My Freshman Composition students were starting to appear laconic as we approached the end of the semester. I designed this presentation to provide a fun, interactive exercise to introduce the new assignment (comparison and contrast).

The students told me they found the slide show helpful because I provided simple examples that they could work with as a group, making the slide show interactive. The slide show also generated a class discussion in which the students exchanged their (often different) opinions.

Though the presentation was helpful to my students, I think that the first half of the slides had too much text. The last slide, in which I asked my students to compare and contrast potential presidential candidates, did not go as planned. Many of the students did not recognize Condolezza Rice or Barack Obama (this presentation took place long before Obama declared he was running for President). I learned that sometimes popular culture is more helpful when teaching new concepts than current events.

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