Powerpointlessness

Powerpointlessness is using technology just to use it for technology sake. Powerpointlessness typically involves the use of too many bullets, cliché clip art, simple thoughts, and one liner's that the presenter does not expand upon. It addition, powerpointlessness can also be defined as having a presenter that does not communicate effectively and exhibits poor eye contact.

Throughout my career I have been the viewer of many powerpoint presentations, and I have to say, their have been some that seemed to exude “pointlessness”. I have witnessed presentations where the presenter read word for word from the slides. I have also had the pleasure of viewing slides with too many bullet points on one slide, slides with major grammatical errors, and slides that have used terrible background colors and slide designs that distracts from the presentation itself.

In order to teach our students the correct format and use of powerpoint, we need to show them examples of well done and well presented powerpoint slides. Students should also be taught to prepare their presentations based on rubrics, such as organization of content, originality, format, platform transferability, subject knowledge, graphical design, mechanics, screen design, and use of enhancements. This way they will know what they are being evaluated on and thus will tailor their powerpoint slides appropriately. It may also prove effective to engage students in then writing their own rubrics with teacher support and guidance. According to McKenzie, student performance is likely to improve
by reading over such rubrics in advance.

There are several key points mentioned in the McKenzie article regarding powerpointlessness that are key in teaching students have to become good artists in the field of powerpoint slide design. It is important that student’s are taught to:
1. Maintain depth and complexity. According to McKenzie, it is important that we as teachers do what we can to combat what he terms “Mentalsoftness™ “ which is the tendency to settle for clichés, bromides and platitudes rather than conducting an earnest, probing investigation.
2. Provide sufficient evidence. It is important to build a solid foundation of the case being made.
3. Consider their audience. The goal is to inform, enlighten and possibly even change someone's mind. Students must be taught that the chances of reaching an audience are greatly increased if the presenter tries to understand the group and its characteristics
4. Eliminate distractions
5. Select powerful images. Much of the clip art commercially available to students is quite limited and limiting. Being in the technology age we should teach students to make use of digital camera imagery and artwork wherever possible.
6. Distill words. Students must understand that slides are meant to share main ideas, phrases and key points. Slides should rarely offer more than a dozen words each.
7. Speak concisely and effectively to a group about the ideas represented by the slides. They should not read the slides to the group.
8. Make sure their slides have harmony, proportion, balance, restraint, and originality.
9. Deliver dramatically. students must master strategies to develop and maintain contact, engagement, credibility and trust. Much depends upon the manner with which personal qualities are communicated. If character and sincerity accompany the words, the audience is less likely to dismiss the presentation as mere rhetoric.
10. Maintain eye contact. An effective speaker creates a strong connection with the audience by establishing eye contact with each member of the audience at various points throughout the presentation. Students should be taught to have the ability to alter their presentation based on non verbal cues of the audience.
11. Avoid reading slides out loud, because the words on the slides are meant to be talking points only. We should trust the audience to read them without our help and turn our own efforts toward elaboration and exploration in a fresh voice that reaches out into the room warmly and sincerely.
12. Speak with conviction. It seems to be an essential aspect of citizenship - the ability to recognize and debunk the falsely sincere and manipulative speaker, the glib presentation.
In utilizing the well written and concise points by McKenzie, we as teachers can communicate the skills of power pointing to our students in a way that they will be excited to master their skills in developing powerpoint slides.

Can technology help develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills

I do think that technology can develop higher order thinking and problem solving skills. According to an article written by Cotton (1991), critical thinking has been defined both as, “reflective and reasonable thinking that is focused n deciding what to believe or do” and it is also defined as “the process of determining the authencity, accuracy and worth of information or knowledge claims”. Due to the nature of technology and the fact that critical thinking involves a great deal of logical thinking, reasoning, and comparison it is well served to act as a resource in developing higher order/critical thinking skills in students.

These critical thinking type skills are acquired when students are encouraged to read/review information on the internet, then are asked to find a theme behind what they reviewed. According to the Cotton(1991) article, several research studies have found that computer assisted instruction has a positive impact on intellectual growth and achievement gains and also that many commercially available thinking skills instructional programs have been shown to bring about improvements in students’ performance on intelligence and achievement tests.

Due to the fact that information is very readily available on computers from a variety of resources, technology allows students to piece together information and analyze it so that they can not only pull together key themes but they can also weed out inaccurate information. It is through technological based projects such as reviewing historical accounts, reviewing websites and reviewing differing sides of debates that students are able to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate (Bloom’s taxonomy) all the information they are reviewing. According to Saskatchewan Learning, critical thinking involves the seeking out of the most accurate and fair positions regardless of or in spite of one’s own interests, and it takes into account the viewpoints and arguments of others. As mentioned previously, tasks such as web searches, reviews of differing historical accounts, etc, involve reviewing the viewpoints and arguments of others in order to determine the most accurate and fair position. In addition, this same article written by Saskatchewan Learning emphasizes the fact that knowledge retained by students is knowledge which they find relevant to their daily lives and that if they see the learning task as personally meaningful they are able to learn better. Technology is the basis of our world today, and technology is often personally meaningful to students so if we use something near and dear to their hearts it is highly likely that they will be more open and more ready able to use their critical thinking skills.

All About Me

I am a nurse by trade, but ironically, I can not stand to watch surgeries, which is why I now work in the field of research.
Teaching has always been in my heart and it was a close tie between teaching and nursing when choosing what my undergraduate degree would be. Despite years of delaying returning back to school for teaching (because this will be my 2nd masters degree) I have now decided to move and let God lead the way. It brings me the greatest joy to see my own children learning new things and I want to be involved in helping other children learn as well. I also feel it is my responsibility to be involved in the teaching of children so that they can grow up to accomplish their God given purpose.
A majority of my work life revolves around using email, Microsoft word, Powerpoint, excel, the internet, etc. I also am a digital camera fiend so I tend to take lots of pictures of my family and have accomplished the ability to save the pictures on my computer. All that said, I am somewhat comfortable with technology, but admittedly I tend to only use the basics of all the programs. So I am hoping this class will give me insights on new ways (not just the basics) on how to better utilize technology, so that I can be a better teacher and keep my students interested in the curriculum.