Author Topic: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?  (Read 233 times)

Offline purpleradish

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The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« on: October 07, 2011, 04:33:58 pm »
I'm absolutely ashamed of the first powerpoint I made for my first public school lesson.

I spent a while making sure all the text was centered, even threw in a clipart for "fun." Looking back, it was bland, boring and completely unoriginal. My students must have been bored to tears.
Discovering all of the games and clickable buttons and moving gifs and embedded videos of the waygook powerpoints was like opening a new world for me... and hopefully my students ^^

To jazz up my powerpoints to make them more colorful, exciting and relevant to my students, I'm curious about YOUR favorite powerpoint features.

How do you make clickable buttons ?
How do you find catchy music to include on shows ?
Where can you find ppt templates for games ?

Thank you! and good luck  :)
« Last Edit: October 07, 2011, 04:35:57 pm by purpleradish »

Offline fishead

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Re: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« Reply #1 on: October 10, 2011, 07:20:38 am »
 Link youtube video's in them. Show lotsa Korean personlities like 2NE1 Big Bang. 

Offline patch83

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Re: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« Reply #2 on: October 10, 2011, 10:29:50 am »
I'd also appreciate an explanation on hyperlinks, and would doubly appreciate one for PowerPoint in Korean (probably pushing my luck on that one) in English - I don't speak techie very well.

Offline purpleradish

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Re: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« Reply #3 on: October 11, 2011, 03:05:06 pm »
@Patch83-- Good point! That reminds me: I do most of my powerpoints at home because my work computer has Powerpoint in Korean (duh). I'm going to check if there is someway to change the settings to English, though I'm not sure it's possible... 

Offline Daejeon

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Re: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« Reply #4 on: October 11, 2011, 03:26:39 pm »
You can check all my PowerPoint tutorials in the information technology section of the site.

Offline Driver 8

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Re: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« Reply #5 on: October 16, 2011, 09:02:49 pm »
I'm probably in the minority with this opinion,  but I don't think you  should worry that much about this.  Your teaching and lesson preparation should be focused mainly on the content and the most effective methods for getting kids to understand and learn first and foremost.  How amazing or attractive your powerpoint is secondary in my  opinion.  When you're making your powerpoint, instead of worrying about the appearance,  focus on places in the presentation where you can stop and engage the students.  This just means having places where you use animation to get them to guess or think about an answer instead of simply reading it to them.  In other words, you make the words or images appear after the slide appears.  It's very easy to do.

Remember the golden rule of ESL teaching:  For any given lesson, if you're doing more of the work than the students are, you're doing something wrong.  Of  course, I know that's not always possible with these students, but that should always be your aim.  Good luck!

« Last Edit: October 16, 2011, 09:06:31 pm by Driver 8 »

Offline Paul

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Re: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2011, 03:38:09 pm »
Yeah, there's a dirty great long document full of inane rambling about pretty much just hyperlinks written by some fool over on the same sticky thread Daejeon just pointed out. It describes where things are in Korean PPT using a combination of images and hairy fairy descriptions of what the icons look like.

My favourite features are not using too many features. Seriously. Make the slides consistent in structure but surprising in content, have the total progression very clear (so the students have some promise the slideshow is not endless) and use basic complimentary colour principles. Do not use the default PPT colour schemes. Finally, jazz them up with characters relevant to your student's interests where you can. But remember, the slideshow is a tool. The one teaching your students is not it but you. Even the crummiest slideshow can be made interesting (provided it is not cluttered and visually noisy) if you present it in an engaging manner. Ask questions, get the students to guess what's next, incorporate small puzzles (Doing vocab? Add in missing blanks problems!) etc.

Biggest technical tip: Don't drag and drop images direct from a web browser into Powerpoint. Yes, it works, but it also drags a dirty great big hyperlink with it, and if you nabbed that image off Google, then you have no idea where it came from, nor whether it is Safe For WorkTM.
« Last Edit: October 17, 2011, 03:44:24 pm by Paul »
More primary school colours and shapes activity ideas and resources than you'd ever need - here
Holy free educational fonts Batman!

Offline purpleradish

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Re: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« Reply #7 on: October 19, 2011, 02:12:54 pm »
Thanks for all the advice~!

I think its very important to note that WE are teaching, not the powerpoints. I had to take a step back when I read the comments... I'd actually lost a little perspective and gotten carried away with the access to so much technology in class.

Its important to remember that powerpoints aren't the focus, learning is the focus.

And the wise words of another post.... "If you're doing more work than the students are, you're probably doing something WRONG!"

lol Thanks everyone ;)

Offline lasmooth18

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Re: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« Reply #8 on: October 21, 2011, 08:51:33 pm »
Hello all,

When I use powerpoint I make sure to use bright colours...you can use the 'art' text to make it look really good. i do not use a template because that makes it look out of date and old and that is the last thing a child wants to see.

I also agree that the PPP should not be everything but it should have the main things on it that you are teaching thee lesson with.

Thanks everyone and good luck

Offline fishead

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Re: The Power of Powerpoint... how do I jazz up my slides?
« Reply #9 on: Yesterday at 10:12:18 am »
 Gif video's are great. They are short funny video's you can attach them to your powerpoints. I just downloaded some awesome ones from EFL 2.0 ning