Week 5 - PowerPoint and Google Earth

PowerPoint:

This week I was able to have a look at some multimedia resources that are used for presentation – PowerPoint, Prezi and Glogster. I have selected PowerPoint to review further. Again I feel that this form of teaching/learning medium will be used more at the primary school level (especially the lower lever primary which I will be focused on during my first prac).

I know that PowerPoint is by no means a new technology. It was around way back when I was at school! But clearly our knowledge and understanding of how to use PowerPoint to present information has advanced since then. PowerPoint presentations are now not simple slides of dot points. PowerPoint presentations now offer an opportunity to incorporate visual, text and audio – creating an opportunity for ‘higher order thinking.’ (CISCO Systems (2008) accessed from: http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/education/Multimodal-Learning-Through-Media.pdf).

I had a quick practice using PowerPoint and prepared a really simple 'dummy' word additional problem PowerPoint for Grade 1. I have uploaded it to my Wiki at - http://gracegannonict.wikispaces.com/space/content. I was able to include some visuals, text and audio with relative easy – don’t get me wrong, it’s no masterpiece by any means of the imagination, but it works for the purpose and the intended audience.

I will no doubt use PowerPoint as part of the pedagogy not only for teaching with but hopefully to get students to create their own PowerPoint presentations.

PowerPoint is definitely not a high tech tool or overly exciting. But for the purposes of lower level primary school students, I think it’s an appropriate tool.  

Google Earth:

I love it. This tool was something I relied on almost every day as a Town Planner. It’s easy to use and fun to play with.  I can image using Google Earth to play games like – ‘where in the world is____?’ ‘Can you find _____?’ or ‘How far away from the school is _______.’ Students could even create their own questions and answers for other students.

There are great websites that provide lengthy lists of ideas for implementing Google Earth into the classroom. Most of the ideas listed are more suited to high school students, rather than primary school. Nonetheless, some of these websites include:

• Google Earth - http://www.shambles.net/pages/learning/GeogP/gearthplan/.
• Google Earth for Educators at: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/education/.
• Professional Learning Board – Teacher Continuing Learning online at: https://k12teacherstaffdevelopment.com/tlb/google-earth-in-the-classroom/.